Ruination
by gldngrl7
Summary: Second Story in 'Hanging On, Letting Go' series. Follow-up to 'A Favor Among Friends'. Same warnings apply. Dom/sub undertones... Kara and Mon-El question the meaning of their night together and if it can be more. Mon-El's psyche fractures a little bit more, while Kara is forced to face a truth about herself she's long suspected but always denied.
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Ruination**

Chapter: (1/6)

Author: gldngrl7

Started: January 5, 2017

 _I'm a little unsure how it got so complicated_

 _If I let go I know, I'll regret it_

 _Every heart that I held before_

 _I was sure to break it_

 _-Jason Derulo – "Cheyenne"_

Loathe to leave her side, he regrets dragging himself from the heat of her bed and her arms; from the soft brush of her breath on his shoulder. He'd like nothing more than to stay until she wakes, to kiss away her inevitable morning-after awkwardness before taking her once more in the light of the morning sunrise.

He'd give anything to hear her cry his name against his ear as he rocks his body into hers, the morning light streaming through the window to illuminate the slight sheen of sweat building up on their skin. He's had her, and now there'll never be any going back.

"Tick-tock, brother," Ral's voice drags Mon-El from his reverie. Mon-El doesn't know how long he's been standing at the end of her bed watching her sleep. In her sleep, she shifts to her stomach, burying her forearms under her pillow and settling against the soft down. Her bed sheet has shifted, leaving her back bare, a gorgeous canvas of flawless skin, as her golden curls spill off to one side. He'd sell his soul to kiss his way up her spine.

At some point he got dressed on autopilot, and blew out all the still-burning candles in the room from last night, their leftover ambience. "What's that story about the princess and the clock striking midnight?" Ral asks.

"I don't remember."

"Well you're about to turn into a radish, princess."

"Pumpkin," he corrects, his brain also on autopilot. "And that was the carriage."

"See…I knew you remembered."

Mon-El opens his mouth to reply before he thinks better of it. Outside, the morning sky is beginning to lighten and he's going to have to tear himself away from this wonderful view of her if he wants to make it back to the DEO in time for his mandated check-in. He slips out of her room, wondering how someone who can hear a cry for help from a dozen miles away can sleep so soundly even when the sounds of the city awakening already echo in his ears. Debating his best exit strategy, he elects the window she uses when leaving for 'emergencies', rather than departing through the front door—which would require leaving the door unlocked. There's just one more thing.

He sneaks back into her bedroom, depositing a remembrance on the pillow beside her. She will wake up with the gift of knowing that the night meant something to him. He tucks the comforter more firmly around her back so she won't get cold before slipping out the door. Squeezing out of her living room window, he closes it as best as he can behind him, checking the street for dog walkers and early morning joggers before dropping the four stories to land on the pavement below. Thanks to Kara, he's learned a thing or two about prudence.

Kara wakes with sunshine streaming through her floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window and startles with how late it is already. She rarely sleeps past the first hour of sunrise, her energy typically more manic after a good night's sleep.

But this morning is different.

Her body is more tired than usual, deliciously so. Reaching a hand across the bed, Kara expects to find him there, but instead his space on the mattress is empty and cold. _Empty for a while then_ , she concludes. Kara's heart sinks at the discovery. How long had he stayed after she'd fallen into a deep sleep?

Wiping the drowsiness from her eyes, she spots something on the pillow beside her. There, where his head was rested only hours before, lay three delicate flowers. Forget-me-nots. She debates if that is a plea from him for her not to forget what passed between them or a gesture meant say he will not forget.

Either way, Kara smiles dreamily at the tiny blue and pink blossoms. He left her asleep, but didn't want her to think he was just _leaving_ her. Placing the flowers on her bedside table, she stretches her arms over her head, working out the twinges and kinks left in the aftermath of a long night of _repeated_ lovemaking. Kara attempts to suppress the spread of the grin across her face by biting her lower lip, but it's like trying to subdue a high tide. The feeling is too strong.

Her wistfulness is impolitely disturbed by the discordant buzzing of her phone on the bedside table. The noise effectively extinguishing her morning afterglow, Kara reaches over to answer it, nearly toppling a candle, the lamp, and a picture frame in her haste. Her sister's voice comes over the line before Kara can even place the phone to her ear.

"I've been waiting for you to call me since last night!" Alex admonishes. "Are you _still_ in bed?"

Kara snuggles further into the warmth of her nest, pulling the comforter over her head. "Yes," she pouts.

Trying to kick her brain into gear and failing miserably, Kara's only thought, in the darkness created by the covers, is that he should be on the other side of the bed, dragging her into his arms and touching every part of her naked skin that he can reach. Her body yearns for it. Kara sighs sadly. It's as if it had all been a dream – a glorious dream. But she's naked and definitely no longer a virgin. She can feel it.

"Get your butt out of bed and come open the door, slacker. I brought donuts and coffee."

Kara's stomach growls viciously, as if to remind her that sex isn't the only basic necessity in her life. If she didn't know any better she'd say that her stomach is currently jealous of…other parts of her. She crawls out of bed and roots around for her robe before remembering it was discarded in the living room last night. So in its stead she throws on her crumpled nightgown. She picks up the robe, donning it en-route to the door and finishes tying the sash just as her sister enters.

Alex looks her up and down and smirks. "You look…ravished."

"Feed me," Kara demands, reaching for the donut box. Alex hands over the box of assorted sugary treats without resistance, preferring not to cause an international incident. Kara takes the box and the offered cup of coffee and retreats with them back to the kitchen island.

She tears a handful of paper towels off the roll on the counter before digging into the box and selecting an overstuffed, raspberry, jelly-filled pastry.

"So…Mon-El checked back into the DEO this morning safe and sound," Alex informs her with a grin that grows wider as she adds, "Five minutes late."

Kara nearly chokes on her bite of donut. "He was late?" she asks. "Is he in trouble?" So he hadn't left as soon as she'd fallen asleep sometime around 2 AM. The deepest parts of Kara's belly perform a series of back flips and her heart rate picks up speed, but he refuses to figure out why.

"Relax," Alex reassures her, holding out her hand in a well-honed diplomatic gesture. "We don't send out tactical teams for tardiness. The point I was trying to make is that he must have left at the very last minute." Ever observant, she tilts her head toward the living room window, cracked open a few inches. "And he left by the window, I see. How very 'Romeo' of him. So…was he?"

"Was he what?" she stalls, her mouth full of raspberry jam. It's too much to expect a girl to snack _and_ dish.

"Was he…Romeo?" Her voice is filled with barely restrained concern.

Kara glances away from her sister, wishing for all the world that she could avoid Alex's razor sharp scrutiny. During Sister Night, she had promised Alex to inform her of how everything went with Mon-El, but in the warm light of morning, she was hesitant to speak. Last night hadn't been what she was expecting, and Kara still doesn't quite know what to do with that. Part of her wants to keep it to herself for the time being, hold it in cupped hands like a fragile ember on a windy night. Just for her.

"C'mon!" Alex protests. "Do I need to go shoot his ass, or what?"

"Please don't." With Kara's state of mind the way it is—all a jumble—she decides maybe it would be best, healthy even, to talk about it. At least some of it. "I like his…a-ass…just the way it is." Heat rises in her cheeks with the use of the coarse word, her mouth stumbling on it.

Alex had always been the bold one- the first one to curse in front of their parents, the first to stay out past curfew, the first to break the rules. Kara knew it was Alex's subconscious way of garnering parental attention in a house with an alien sister that seemed to demand the lion's share of it. She never begrudged Alex her little rebellions, in fact, she had always admired them, hero-worshipping her sister from the beginning.

Kara, on the other hand, was the opposite. Always following the rules. Never talking back, even when she wanted to. Never picking up the curse words that the kids at school relished throwing around like bouncing balls they'd lob at one another. Never staying out past her curfew – never giving Eliza or Jeremiah a reason to worry.

She supposes it's a function of being—essentially—a foster child. Don't rock the boat. Don't be more trouble than your worth. Don't give them _any_ reason to send you away. On the outside, she never doubted her place in the Danvers' household, but deep within she feared that one wrong move would pull that ostensibly safe, secure rug out from under her.

"Well that's an interesting development," Alex notes.

"It's just a word, Alex," Kara scoffs, trying to play it off.

"I wasn't talking about that." Alex's brain shifts for a second, as though replaying the conversation over in her head. "Although…now that you mention it."

"I want more," Kara blurts, wiping powdered sugar from her lips with the paper towel crunched in her hands.

Alex takes a chocolate covered donut for herself before sliding the box across the counter to her. "That's why I brought you a dozen. Minus one."

"Not donuts," Kara says. Though she blindly grabs another donut as if to belie her own words. "Mon-El," she confesses.

Kara takes a huge bite of the Boston cream pie donut, and when the filling floods her mouth, she can't help but have flashbacks to some of last night's activities. With the ring finger of her right hand she demurely and deliberately wipes a dab of vanilla filling from the corner of her mouth, while a dampness secretly springs forth between her legs. Rao! Horny from eating a donut! If Mon-El were here right now she would climb him like Mount Everest.

"Are you serious right now?" Alex asks, a look of incredulity on her face. "This is Mon-El we're talking about still? The guy you disliked the moment you found out he was from Daxam? The planet of Hedonists?"

Kara's lips press together, one eye squeezing shut in her cute, awkward way as she recalls that regrettable memory. She'd been a snob and a hopeless prude, in that way that virgins who don't know the call of the flesh can be on occasion, when their own attractions frighten them. "Well…maybe…Hedonism can have its place," she suggests. She might consider rethinking some of her old beliefs since last night. She never could have imagined this…agreement…would make her question so many things.

Alex barks a laugh, bending over at that waist and placing her hands on her knees. It's a laughter that's much bigger than her size would suggest her capable of. Kara's skin heats up again, but this time it's not from remembered intimacies, it's from the embarrassment that comes from being laughed at.

"What did he do to you?" Alex queries, laughter still spilling out her mouth like a rum barrel with a leak in it.

Kara watches her sister and waits for the laughter to trickle off. Like last night, this isn't going at all as expected. Her beloved sister is plodding through her afterglow with dirty boots and leaving tracks all over the floor. In defense of her beautiful night, her first sexual experience, and in defense of the—she now finds— _incredible_ man who provided it to her, Kara is struck with the inexorable need to wipe the smile from her sister's face.

"Nothing I didn't happily beg for," she says proudly, adding a defiant flip of her curls for good measure.

Mission accomplished.

Stunned, the smile slips from Alex's face and a crimson blush encroaches upon her neck as well. "So, it was…good…then?"

As close as the sisters were, they were not used to talking about these things. She had never, before now, had anything to talk about.

"It was spectacular. Thank you for asking." Kara takes a sip from her coffee and then sets her mouth in a firm line. Alex can feel the tension pull taut like guide wire. "Everything I could have asked for."

"I'm sorry about laughing," Alex apologizes, hoping to put her sister at ease. "I just never thought—"

"Well, neither did I," Kara cuts her off. She wishes Mon-El were here right now, so that he could take her in his arms and stroke away the emotion she feels welling up in her right now. But she doesn't know if that's even something he would do now—if that's who they _are_ now. And Kara finds that not knowing is scarier than losing her virginity. Her throat tightens and she turns away from her sister before tears can fall down her cheeks. Kara wipes away the singular droplet that escapes her control. She's never liked showing her tears.

"Hey, c'mon," Alex's voice softens. Even turned away, Alex recognizes the dejected slump in her sister's shoulders. "Talk to me. If everything went so well, why are you upset? It can't just be about me laughing."

"He was gone when I woke up this morning," Kara whispers.

"He had to—"

"I know."

"But that doesn't mean it didn't hurt a little," the older woman surmises.

Kara nods. "And now I'm confused. He was so sweet," she tells her sister. "Telling me that he wanted to win my heart – wanted to do what it takes to be the kind of man I deserve. But what does that mean? He wants to be with me today? Tomorrow? Some day in the distant future?"

"Is there reason to think he wasn't telling you the truth?"

"Oh, the truth!" Kara exclaims. "He totally remembers the kiss, by the way."

"I figured he might—"

"Confessed the whole thing to me, right where you're standing. He said that he lied because he didn't want me to be embarrassed by him. Embarrassed by _him_!"

"Well there have been a few times when you weren't exactly—"

It comes flooding back to her, like a montage of moments –all the moments when she'd tried to fit him into this tiny mold of what she wanted him to be. But now…now she's realizing that he's so much bigger than any mold she could make for him.

"Oh no, Alex! I _was_ embarrassed by him, and disappointed. Embarrassed because he wasn't fitting in, and because he wasn't doing the things I wanted him to do. He lost everything, Alex. He came here with nothing but the clothes on his back and memories of a long dead world and what did I do? Get a job, Mon-El! Wear these glasses, Mon-El! Become a hero, Mon-El! Stop beating people up for money, Mon-El!" she rambles.

"I think you might have been right about the last one," Alex tries and fails to interrupt the rant.

"I could have been more compassionate. I could have done more to help him find his way, instead of assuming that he should make the same choices I have. I gave him impossible standards to meet. I set him up for failure from the start. I am an awful, _awful_ person."

"You might be overstating things a bit."

"And by some miracle he's forgiven me for all of it," Kara shakes her head. "Which just confuses me even more because I still don't know what last night means. It was just supposed to be a one-time thing and now…."

"You don't want it to be."

Kara shakes her head but remains silent, a condition Alex finds incredibly disconcerting. She takes the opportunity to attempt to ease her concerns.

"Kara," Alex says softly, approaching her sister as if she might fold with the slightest provocation. "I think you're unspooling a little bit, so I'm going offer you a little advice, okay?" With Kara's nod, she continues. "I know that my love life has been kind of a mess, but here it goes: Mom once told me…when we were having 'the talk', 'Don't confuse sex with love, Alex. It's the most dangerous thing you can ever do.' Now…I'm not saying that what you and Mon-El shared wasn't real or that it didn't mean something profound. I wasn't there; it's not for me to judge. What I _am_ saying is that it's okay not to be sure right now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I'm right about this." Alex chuckles lightly, but not in a mocking sort of way. "You've had this whole new world open up to you overnight. It can be overwhelming and emotional and terrifying and exhilarating; or any combination of those all at once. Believe me…I know! Of course you have questions. But I don't think you should make any assumptions right now… about what it all might mean, for you _or_ for him. There's no reason to push this, sis."

"So what do I do?"

"You have to figure that out for yourself. But…if you want to have sex with him again, then have sex with him again. Scratch that itch, I say. It's your right." Alex speaks with the assertion of woman who's spent her fair share of time lately scratching her own itch.

"That's what he said last night. That it was my right to demand my needs be met."

"Sounds like he's on the right track. For once." Alex couldn't resist getting in that last dig at Mon-El. For good or for bad, the Daxamite was a part of Kara's— _their_ —lives now, and she needed to get used to that. Especially if this thing between them became something more, which she had a feeling it might. Alex didn't want her impressions of Mon-El to become a roadblock in her relationship with her sister.

Kara rolls her eyes.

"But think about this, too: don't have sex with him because you believe you have something to apologize for or that you owe him. And don't have sex with him because you might have made some special connection when you were together. If you do it, make sure you're doing it for the right reasons, and be honest with yourself about what those reasons are. And honest with him. Because one thing I do know, Kara, is that expectations can kill a relationship, especially in the beginning when it's all fresh. Unless you're on the same page, and you can take the time to figure that out. Don't be pushy. Keep it light. I'm sure the situation will work itself out before you know it."

"I hope so."

"And if you really want to know how he feels about all of it, just ask him, Kara."

She smiles at her sister's advice but somehow thinks she's not quite ready to be that brave yet.

"Now, finish your donuts and take a shower. You have a training session scheduled with the new recruits in an hour and you can't come in smelling of sex. I'm already running late. I'll meet you there, right?"

"Right," Kara sighs, giving her sister a look for the tease. The last thing she wants to do is spend an afternoon throwing green recruits around the training room, while trying not to break them permanently.

"Hey, sis," Alex calls before opening the door.

"Yes?"

"You really are glowing," Alex offers. An olive branch. "The Daxamite must have done something right. Can't wait to throw him a wink next time I see him."

Kara laughs, the feeling like a rose unfurling in her chest, some of her frustration melting away. Sister talks are good for that. And Alex would do it, she had no doubt. Just to see the look on his face. Kara wishes she could be there to see it too. "You'll have to tell me how that works out."

"I will. See you in an hour."

"An hour," she echoes, as Alex closes the door behind her.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_I didn't know that I was starving 'til I tasted you_

 _Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo_

 _By the way, right away you do things to my body_

 _I didn't know that I was starving 'til I tasted you_

 _-Hailee Steinfeld/Gray – "Starving"_

His whole life, once he got out of the throwing dirt clods stage, he's pretty much been a stickler about grooming. A neat and tidy appearance does attract the partners, after all, and for a man dedicated to the giving and receiving of pleasure, attraction is key. It's been a daily struggle here though, since it takes Kara's heat vision to provide him with a haircut and the clothes he wears do not have the clean lines and complimentary silhouette to which he's accustomed. So he settles for staying clean, his hair neatly combed and dirt scraped from beneath his fingernails.

But this time, stepping into the shower in the men's locker room, is like sticking his hand into the mouth of a rabid Glarbeast. Mon-El can still smell her on him – her desire, her sweat, her own unique scent, and he'd rather cut off his own arm than wash that away. But he has little choice. He has somewhere he needs to be in an hour and, according to J'onn, he should attempt to look his best.

"If you were any quieter I'd think you were the one that was dead," the achingly familiar voice says

"You do enough talking for the both of us, Ral," Mon-El retorts.

Morgon-Ral had died long ago in the fall of Daxam, his body given back to the Gods of Val-Or while Mon-El drifted, asleep, through the Well of Stars, slowly finding his way to Earth. Though it had been three decades since last he saw his friend, to Mon-El it felt like mere weeks. They had been companions, brothers in bond, since childhood. No one knew him like Ral, and no one knew Ral like he did.

He couldn't talk to anyone on this planet about Kara, about his growing feelings for her, not unless he wished to alienate every last one of them. So, his still-grieving mind created the construct of Ral, not unlike the hologram of her mother to whom Kara regularly speaks.

"I was right, wasn't I?" Ral asks, a slow smile spreading across his cherubic face like spilled honey. "About it being different."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mon-El denied.

"Then why didn't you leave?" Ral points out. "She fell asleep _hours_ before; you could have left at any time. You always leave…as soon as you've exhausted them. You were the master of sneaking away unnoticed. But this time…" Ral chuckles, "this time you left a tribute. And _that_ is not like you."

"Fine! It was different, okay?"

"Why do you have to make this so hard?" Ral wonders. "The only person you're hurting is yourself. It's not like _I_ care about being right. Not anymore at least."

"What if-?"

"She asked you to stay, _didn't_ she?" Ral challenges.

"She never said she wanted more," Mon-El argues. "Besides, she was emotional afterwards, not thinking clearly. Maybe she just wanted to be held. Women can be like that sometimes."

"Sometimes women can also have emotions _and_ make clear choices about what they want at the same time. In fact, sometimes that's when they make the best choices. Emotional or not, it looked to me like she knew exactly what she wanted, my friend. So, congratulations on a plan well executed. Well played on the sad-little-boy gambit, by the way. 'I'm all alone in the world. Hold me'. Masterful," Ral crows, his voice laced with admiration.

"That wasn't a gambit, Ral!" Mon-El protests.

"I know," Ral replies, suddenly solemn. "I was just busting you, that's all. You're so serious all the time now; I hardly recognize you."

"You try losing your entire world and everyone you ever loved!" Mon-El shouts, his voice echoing off the tile and concrete walls. Of its own accord, his hand forms into a fist and the next thing he knows a section of white tile from the shower is shattering around it, ceramic shards raining down on his feet. Shocked by his outburst, Mon-El stares at his clenched fist and the hole in the shower wall, his racing breath struggling to normalize. "See how jovial _you_ feel."

"I think I know what's going on here."

"Oh, I just can't wait to hear this," Mon-El says, the weight of heavy sarcasm in his voice. Reluctantly, he lathers his hands with the bar of utilitarian, multi-purpose soap and begins to meticulously eradicate the memory of last night from his skin.

"You're having trouble accepting that she might want you; this breathtaking woman who is, let's face it, so out of your league she's playing a different sport. But that's not what's giving you trouble. I mean, you're accustomed to that; bedding women based on nothing more than the strength of your charm and that ridiculous smile, or—and it pains me to bring this up—your ranking at court. More than a few ladies tried to position themselves closer to the crown.

"Ral," Mon-El grinds out. It's a warning for Ral to school his words; the action a ghost from better times.

"I've never given you anything but the truth, brother, no matter how much it cost me, and I'm not going to stop now just because I'm dead. Besides, I'm not saying anything that you don't already know on some level."

Mon-El swipes his sudsy hands through his wet hair and lathers the foam cleanser through it, hoping the action will drown out the sound of Ral's slightly imperious voice.

"You can't accept that she might want you even though you have so little to offer; no currency, no bloodline, no titles, no position at court."

"I got it!"

"You're just a simple man now, with naught but his heart to give." Ral throws a courtly gesture, covering his heart with his hand in an overly romantic way, before the smile evaporates from his face. "But worst of all, you've got it stuck in your head that you don't _deserve_ her because of what happened on Daxam. Don't look now, but I think someone's letting emotion cloud his judgment."

"Are you done?" Mon-El snaps.

"Do you really want me go?"

"No," Mon-El replies after a moment of silence, his shoulders slumping. "What am I supposed to do, Ral?"

"You have to find a way to get past this. Find your path. Assimilate. Your old life is gone, brother, and it's never coming back. The days of free-flowing Zakarian ale at the endless banquet feast are over and it's imperative that you accept that. You must make this place your home if you want to prove to her that you can be what she needs. "

"So I'm just supposed to _forget_?" Mon-El's heart constricts at the thought of letting go of even the smallest part of the things he loved.

"Nobody's saying that," Ral shakes his head. " _Beyulat Daxam_ , brother. But you're re-reading the same chapter over and over, when there's so much more left to your story. Turn the page – that's all I'm saying. Turn just one page and then maybe the next one will be easier, and then the next and the next."

Mon-El stands under the stream of hot water, steam surrounding him and filling his lungs as he considers Ral's advice. He's stumbled around this planet since he got here, only attempting to belong when it suited him, afraid to let go of the life he lead before as if it might somehow come back to him, catching him unawares.

Somewhere inside, he knows that's not the kind of man Kara needs; a beggarly refugee, half in this world and half out. She needs someone to stand by her side and to be there for her. And how can he do that, if he's barely here himself?

"I can't lose her," he mumbles, more to himself than to his companion.

"Then listen to your far superior friend," Ral butts in, "and stop trying to kill this thing before it's really started because of some misguided notion that you don't deserve to be alive. The gods have a plan for you."

"The gods!" Mon-El scoffs.

"Laugh all you want, but I've seen the signs—which means you've seen them too."

"Signs?"

"Don't play dumb. Has it occurred to you that if you and Kara had met before the destruction of Krypton she would have still been a child? Then while she was on Earth growing into a fine young woman—and I do mean _fine_ —you were drifting through the Well of Stars in stasis. It's like the gods were just waiting for the right moment. When you entered Earth's atmosphere you could have landed anywhere on this planet, another country even. But did you? No…you landed right here in National City, home of one Kara Danvers, the angel that opened your pod."

"That doesn't mean the gods of Val-Or exist."

"Some things never change," Ral chuckles. "Even dead, I do _love_ having this argument with you. You're going to believe in something one day. Even if it's not the gods of Val-Or."

"I believe in Kara," Mon-El professes.

"That's a good start," Ral nods.

Mon-El swallows thickly, recalling the power born inside of him during their lovemaking the night before, and wishing he could still be cradled between her thighs now. Standing under the shower of never ending hot water, he leans forward and places he forehead against the cooler tile, considering everything he'd learned last night, both about himself and about her as well.

"Are you going to tell her?" Ral asks, soberly.

Requiring no clarification because it had just been hovering on the outskirts of his conscious thought. It is knowledge he's been struggling with since holding her in his arms, basking in their afterglow. Mon-El replies, "No."

"Is that the wisest choice?"

"Don't you think it will seem a little self-serving?" Mon-El wonders, trapped between what he wants and what he knows is right.

"Someone could get hurt and if that happens you will lose her trust forever."

"I would never let it come to that."

"It starts here," Ral insists, his voice rough and regal in Mon-El's ears. "Being the kind of man she needs means making the right choices, even when they're hard. Even when it means things don't always fall in your favor. Isn't that what you wanted my help with in the first place?"

"I just don't know—"

"She will _never_ be able to take her pleasure with a human man. Not unless she wishes to make him a eunuch. She needs to know that."

"I know," Mon-El snaps, his entire body turning rigid, jaw clenching. He runs a hand through his wet hair, turns around and slumps against the tile, his back to wall. "I know. I just…I just want her to choose _me_ ," Mon-El confesses. "Not because I'm her only viable option."

"Did something special happen between you last night?" Ral asks, on the razor's edge of prosecutorial. "When you held her in your arms, gave her pleasure and took your own, did something happen inside of you? Did it open your eyes, brother? Show you the art in a light you've never seen before?"

"Yes."

"Then trust _that_. Always choose what is best for _her_ , and not yourself. Do that…and I promise she will never see you for anything but the man she needs."

"I want that," Mon-El nods. "For her to always look at me the way she did when I was inside her."

"And you can have it. But not if you run from her now." A slow shift takes place then, the stern intensity in Ral's his eyes shifts to a sparkle and a wide lascivious grin spreads across his cherubic face, and he chuckles deep in his chest. "Besides…how can you leave her now, when there's so much left to teach her?"

"She learns quickly," Mon-El agrees, his melancholic fog lifting slightly.

"Such a sweet, natural submissive you've found. It was magnificent how she surrendered to you. What could possibly be more intoxicating than a woman who can throw you against a wall with one hand, yet will spread her legs for you without question? What I wouldn't give to hear wicked words of pleasure spill from her mouth. 'Fuck'," Ral says, testing the word, hitting the 'k' hard. "It's such a divine word for the art, so primitive and guttural. Altogether satisfying, don't you think? Won't it sound lovely coming from her ripe mouth?"

Mon-El groans as Ral rambles words that burn fire in his loins. He vividly remembers Kara's willingness to comply with his desires, even the ones he hadn't specifically requested. He recalls the way she innocently took him in her mouth, listening intently to his instructions as he tutored her between harsh breaths, his hand sifting through her hair, her head bobbing up and down over his desperate cock. Mon-El remembers her guileless smile of conquest when she accepted all of him and swallowed every last drop.

"Brother, if you don't train your Kryptonian goddess you'll never forgive yourself. Val-Or! _I'll_ never forgive you!"

"She is everything I ever wanted, but didn't believe could exist in one person."

"No wonder you'd take more than one partner to bed so often," Ral waggled his eyebrows.

"I gave up on finding satisfaction in one person."

"But not anymore, it seems. I see your goddess is in your thoughts even now." Ral indicates Mon-El's cock, now standing at rapt attention. "You should take care of that, there's not much time before you have to dress and leave. As you no longer have need of me, I'll just—"

Ral withdrew, leaving Mon-El in the shower with a rigid cock and masturbation his only outlet. To most Daxamites, including Mon-El, it was a repugnant task after reaching adulthood, considered selfish in a culture that revered the exchange of pleasure between two or more parties. But he is no longer on Daxam, and the only partner with whom he wishes to exchange pleasure is Kara Zor-El, who is unfortunately not present to tend to his problem.

Soaping up his hand to provide slick lubrication, he begins by caressing his stiff member, imagining Kara's delicate fingers running along the thick, sensitive vein on the underside and then passing her thumb over the weeping, bulbous head. He leans his head against the tile wall and allows the steam to envelop him, drawing him into his fantasy.

He imagines her kneeling before him and wrapping her lips around his length, before sucking him in all the way to the back of her throat. Circling his forefinger to his thumb at the base, he pictures Kara's lips riding up and down the shaft as he ruts mildly into her mouth. Mon-El bites his bottom lip to suppress the groan rising to his throat.

In his fantasy, he fists his hand in her hair and urges her to her feet. After a languid heated kiss he turns her around to face the wall, pressing her shoulders until she's bent over before him. Taking his cock in his hand completely, Mon-El imagines plunging into her with little preamble, pleased to find her clutch wet and ready. He can hear her cries of pleasure in his ears, distant memories borrowed from the night before and growing fainter with each use.

He speeds his hand, gripping and sliding his fist along the steel of his cock, trying to find the best rhythm. The right rhythm, which will make him forget that he isn't buried in her perfectly greedy core. The fantasy fades like the steam as the water grows colder. He jerks and pulls at his cock in a mad attempt to replicate her perfection, but can find only a poor substitute of sensation.

The pressure in his balls grows until all he can do is drive toward his hollow climax, his chest aching to be inside of her once more. When he comes, it's with a lackluster precision and a dismal groan; a clinical act devoid of the newly uncovered emotions or the sense of fulfillment he experienced with her last night. His seed spills to the tiled floor and—wasted—spins down the drain.

He should feel better, more relaxed, but his desire for her seems to be about as impenetrable as his skin and the release has barely dented the surface, because the desire itself has so little do with the physical. Shutting off the shower spigot, Mon-El is enveloped in the chilly air of the gym locker room, its concrete walls providing poor insulation to keep in the heat. He reaches for a white towel and wraps it securely around his waist, knowing one thing for certain as he steps out of the shower.

That Kara Zor-El has ruined him.

She could shower at speed if she wanted to—if she had to—but this morning, that is not the case. Showers are her sanctuary; a place where no demands are placed upon her and few expectations need to be met beyond the cleansing of her body and the rejuvenation of her mind. Here she can take the time to think.

After washing her hair, she works the conditioner meticulously through the long, thick tresses and then leaves it to sit. While the conditioner works its magic, she pours violet scented shower gel onto her fluffy red body sponge and squeezes it until the suds are worked into a fine lather. Every inch of her skin is sensitized unlike ever before as she moves the lathered sponge over her arms, around her neck, and down her belly.

It's as if Mon-El has turned her on in more ways the one. Completely unaware, Kara Danvers had been walking through life wrapped in cotton batting that had nothing do with the radiation from the yellow sun. Suddenly, she's aware of the spot at the back of her neck that sends a shudder through her when caressed, or the sliver of skin between her belly button and her thatch that has her breath hitching in her throat when she swipes it with the sponge.

Alex had been right. Mon-El had opened a new world to her last night, and she had been ill-prepared for its after effects. She can't imagine that any virgin, for good or for bad, could ever be properly prepared for the feelings that follow the loss of their innocence.

She understands that, for many, the loss of virginity is an event they'd rather not dwell upon, but for Kara that is not the case. Her mind floods with images and sounds burned indelibly in her mind. She can't help but cup her own breasts when she recalls the way he'd fondled them, teasing the nipples until they feel a semblance of the frenzy of need he had built within her.

Before losing her virginity Kara's body would regularly reach a state of tension that begged for the kind of release that comes with masturbation. But had she never felt like she had been dipped in kerosene and set aflame like she did at this moment – like she had last night. She had never felt like a cuckoo clock wound so tight the springs and cogs threaten to fragment.

He had brought her to the peak four times last night, first stoking her desire and then ardently coaxing forth each climax. By rights she should feel the relaxed tranquility of post-coital bliss so often talked about in books and shown on television. Instead, however, her tension is cranked higher than ever before and she needs release once more. Mon-El had opened floodgates within her, a store of sexual energy, which she hadn't known lay buried within.

Her soapy hands travel over the canvas of her skin, pretending that he's there with her, worshiping her body while whispering soft words about her beauty and perfection. Words he gave her last night. Her core throbs with want, starving for him and begging to devour the silk and steel of his cock.

Kara slips her fingers into her wet folds, finding her clit with practiced ease and pressing against it until a shot of white-hot electricity flashes out from her core, spreading to all of her limbs. It steals her breath, but the forgotten shock of it has her crying out his name.

Kara places one hand the shower tiles for support as the press-and-circle of her finger around the bundle of hypersensitive nerves weakens her at the knees. "Oh, God!" she hisses, her throat swallowing air as if it's abruptly become a rare commodity. She bites her lip in concentration her body hungrily reaching out for its impending detonation. It eludes her like a wisp of mist that slips through her fingers.

Needing more, she ups the ante by sliding a finger into the greedy grasp of her entrance and pumping it in and out a few times. She tries to imagine that the digit is Mon-El's but his fingers are longer and more dexterous than hers. Her body refuses to be fooled.

She adds another finger searching for that divine stretch, that feeling of oneness that filled her when he entered her. She recalls wondering if his length and girth would fit within her untried passage, only to feel, when he entered her, like she'd never before been so deeply connected to another person. Beyond the mere casing of their separate skins, there was no discerning where she ended and he began.

Adding a third finger to her endeavor, it becomes increasingly clear that her body will accept no substitute. Kara replays the sound of Mon-El groaning as he labored over her, grunting as he doubled-down on his efforts and finally a deep, resonating growl when his on climax struck. But none of it pushes her over the edge like it should.

Back to her clit, she toys with the bundle, vibrating her own finger against it until the build within her reaches a painful fever pitch. At last, she topples over the edge, falling a disappointingly short distance back to reality. Her orgasm is dismal and unsatisfying, leaving her with the same amount of sexual tension as when she started.

Kara turns and leans back, her head against the tile wall, swiping away a stream of water from her flushing face. Her knees give way beneath her and she slides to the floor. Nothing else—no one else—will do, she realizes; only him. _Him_. In the beginning her plan had been for Mon-El to rid her of her virginity, so that she could be open to a sexual relationship with anyone of her choosing. But somewhere in the candlelit darkness of her bedroom last night, her carefully considered plan had quite thoroughly backfired.

She could no longer be open to just anyone, because no amount of denial would bury the fact that, at times, he had used his abilities to facilitate their lovemaking. To make it better for her. No human man can provide that, she knows. Perhaps she could have sex with a human, but her pleasure would be muted without his strength and speed.

Not to mention, she would have to spend every moment aware of the fragility of her lover. A human partner might offer emotion and attraction, perhaps even connection, but it would never be _true_ intimacy. The kind of intimacy that would give her the freedom to lose control without fear – to surrender control with complete trust. Kara draws her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her shins, tucking her forehead into the crook there. After only one night together, she is certain of one immutable fact.

That Mon-El of Daxam has ruined her.


	3. Chapter 3

_You know just how to make_

 _My heart beat faster_

 _Emotional earthquake_

 _Bring on disaster_

 _Hailee Steinfeld – "Starving"_

Her skin is hypersensitive to the slightest touch and Supergirl's suit hugs her like a second skin in most places, leaving her overheated and tingling to the point of generating static electricity. Two seconds after pulling on her tights, she tears them off, unable to tolerate the tightness encasing her legs. Kara opts to simply wear the red boy-shorts beneath her skirt. Between the length of her skirt and the over-the-knee height of her red-leather boots, it's unlikely anyone will notice her lack of tights.

It's unlikely anyone has ever noticed that she wears them at all.

Kara flies to the DEO, landing in the main foyer on the floor of the building, just before Alex was about to call her.

"You're late," Alex accuses, though her tone lacks and sort of sting or reprimand.

"I'm sorry," she replies. "I'm sorry. Did something happen?" Kara's eyes dart about the room, people bustle about the Command Information Center, but she involuntarily seeks a certain welcoming grin.

"No I was just worried," Alex answers.

"There's no need to be worried," Kara reassures, mechanically, as though she'd said the words a million times before.

"Oh my God," Alex realizes, shock blooming on her face. "You're looking for _him_ , aren't you?"

Kara slumps, caught in the act. "I just wanted to talk to him about…things. Have you seen him?"

"He checked out an hour ago, something about offering to help M'gann at the bar. Since he's immune to the Medusa virus now, he's one of the few people that can help with the Hazardous Materials protocols. Obviously the US government isn't exactly keen on providing a HazMat team for the bar, but the entire place has to be decontaminated from top to bottom, every nook and cranny, before they can re-open. It's also a bonus that he can use his super speed, so maybe the bar will be able to re-open in days instead of weeks. She even offered to pay him for his help."

"That's great!" Kara gushes. She's truly happy for him, that he's found a way to make some money, at least in the short term. And she's proud of him for stepping up to help a person in need. But a part of her is disappointed that he's not here for her. She needs to see him, to feel his hands on her, to ease this ache throbbing in her skin.

"Are you okay, Kara?" Alex asks, her countenance shifting to concern. "Your face is flushed."

"Pfffft," Kara waves her off. "I'm fine," she says, downplaying her sister's concern. "I'm just excited that Mon-El is helping M'gann, that's all. It could be the start of something good," Kara says hopefully.

"Or it could be because the alien bar is the only place that serves alcohol that can actually get him drunk," Alex counters. Kara pins her with a glare that has her wondering if she's on the menu at a barbecue. "All right," Alex says, holding up her hand. "I'm sorry. I'll try to give him the benefit of the doubt. For you."

"Thank you," Kara nods. "If you expect the worst of people, Alex, they'll rise or fall just enough to meet your expectations."

"Dad used to say that," Alex bows her head, eyes suddenly drawn to the tips of her combat boots.

"I know." After a moment of consideration, Kara tells Alex, "I can't push him to be some perfect vision of a hero that I want him to be, so instead I think I'll let him be a man who lost his whole world and is now trying to find his own way in this one. Eliza and Jeremiah—and you—gave me the space and the time to work through all that when I first arrived. At the very least, Mon-El deserves the same understanding."

"I guess I never thought of it that way," Alex says. Perhaps instead of judging her sister's paramour based on some of his less savory actions, she should re-examine the fact that some of his decisions were made with the mind of a person who had experienced unimaginable trauma.

"He smiles and jokes, and to look at him you would think he didn't have a care in the world," she informs her sister. "But there's nothing left of everything that he used to know, and that can't be easy. Just maybe cut him some slack."

"I will," she decides. "But only for as long as it looks like he's making an effort."

"Fair enough," Kara agrees. "Now where is this group of trainees I'm supposed to be pummeling?"

"Training room," Alex replies.

"I hope this is as fun as training Team Arrow and the Legends." Kara's shoulders shrug upwards and she grins in a show of excitement, her hands rubbing together in anticipation. "Good times."

"They're baby agents, Kara. Try not to kill them."

"Me?" she asks, faux offended. "I would never. Just going to blow off a little steam is all." With a sharp pivot on her heels, Kara turns away, heading in the direction of the training room, and practically skips away. Alex watches her go, shaking her head with an endearing chuckle.

An hour later the training room floor is littered with the bodies of groaning agents in training, while Supergirl stands over them, arms akimbo. "Raise your hand if you're really injured."

"I think my arm is broken," comes a muffled voice from a prone body near the wall.

"Ooh…Sorry," Kara winces and apologizes while a supervising agent helps the man to his feet.

"It's okay, Supergirl," the injured man replies, his voice strained with pain. "It's not your fault I didn't stick the landing."

"Let's get you to the infirmary," the supervising agent proposes.

"Good idea," the trainee nods. Kara notices that he's limping as well.

"Who wants to go again?" she asks the room. In unison, the trainees respond with a groan that she thinks is a negative answer. Just as she's about to ramp up a rousing speech about not giving up and how the villains will never go as easy on them as she does, Kara's super hearing detects a commotion at the CIC. "Be right back guys," she says, distracted by the hustle and bustle down the hall. "Feel free to take five."

"Yea," an anonymous voice from somewhere near her feet groans.

Before she can even reach the control room, she's met by Alex who is rushing to retrieve her. Before Kara can even ask what the commotion is about Alex is laying out the situation.

"A few moments ago a LifeFlight chopper suffered catastrophic engine failure and lost altitude on approach to the Carl Ferris Memorial Children's Hospital. We assume the chopper crew is a total loss. But it slammed into the hospital's long term care wing, and there have been at least two secondary explosions in the aftermath. Kara…just so you know…there will be casualties. Fire and Rescue will meet you there."

Kara nods, her mind already conjuring the carnage that can be caused by an air-to-ground collision, and sends a prayer to Rao that she can save as many people as possible. Alex hands her a comms device, which she places into her ear.

In the air before her sister can say anything more, she flies at top speed to the burning hospital, arriving only moments after departing the DEO. Only one firetruck from a station at the other end of the block has arrived, but has yet to hook their hoses into a water source.

Before she can greet the Fire Chief she's distracted by an all too familiar voice. "Supergirl!"

Her stomach does an extended series of flip flops and double back layouts before she even turns in his direction. Surprised by his presence, Kara changes her direction and floats to the ground, landing softly in front of him. "Mon-El, what are you doing here?" she asks.

"I was at the bar and I heard the crash," he replies. "It's just a mile away. Where do you want me?" he asks, his eyes on the raging fireball engulfing four of the hospital's twelve stories.

"What?" she asks, momentarily taken aback by his question.

"What can I do?" he rephrases.

"Oh, right! Uhhh…I'll start with the fire. Can you…help evacuate?"

Mon-El nods sharply. "I'll check the hot zone first, see if there's anyone that needs rescuing." With that, he is gone, zipping away and leaping the seven floors to the hot zone, and for a moment all Kara can do is stare

Already pouring out of the hospital, some evacuees carry gowned patients, while others push wheelchairs and even a few gurneys. Her ears tell her that more fire engines and ambulances are only moments away. She turns to the Fire Chief before he can reach her and orders, "Start a triage!"

"Yes, ma'am," he replies.

Kara takes a deep breath, filling the substantial capacity of her lung before taking flight. She hovers near the raging flames, burning hot from the choppers diesel fuel and spewing forth thick, choking black smoke. Gathering her strength, she focuses and releases the icy breath from her lungs directly into the heart of the flames.

It takes several attempts to douse the hot blaze completely, and when the fire is out, Kara is better able to see the crater left behind by the chopper's crash. Alex had been right when she'd said there would be casualties, and it wasn't just the flight crew.

When she'd said the chopper struck the long term care wing, she meant children in comas, children on life support, and children with special needs so intense they couldn't live outside of a hospital. The smell strikes her like a wave from a Kryptonite blaster and she has to fight to keep from going to her knees.

She doesn't know how long she stands there, tears streaming down her face, before he's lifting her off her feet, slipping one arm under her knees and the other around her back to carry her from the charred room. Kara places her arms around his neck and tucks her head into his shoulder. Mon-El carries her far away from the crater, avoiding other people so that no one can witness her weakness. She's shaking when he sets her down in an abandoned waiting room in another wing of the hospital, her legs wobbling beneath her.

"Supergirl," he says, at first, before dropping his voice to a more intimate tone. "Kara. You're okay."

"But those…," her breath catches and her throat clamps open and shut. She swallows to gain control, but still has to fight her heaving breath. "Those babies…."

"Were gone in an instant," he tells her. His words are pragmatic, but his eyes are filled with compassion and empathy. "They felt no pain. And there was nothing anyone can do. They were gone before we even got here. You know that, right? Look at me and tell me you know that."

She gazes into his eyes, as his thumbs swipe away that tears that fall from hers. "I know that," she croaks with an almost imperceptible nod.

"Good girl," he says, half of his mouth lifting into a crooked, joyless smile. He pulls her into his arms, stroking down her back until her breathing begins to normalize.

It's then that she realizes he isn't wearing a shirt and she pulls back to look at him. The fire had burned off his t-shirt and jacket, but left his jeans mostly intact with the exception of the bottom half of one leg. "What happened your clothes?" she asks, though she already knows.

"Yeah," he scoffs as though reading her mind. " _I_ stood up to the fire just fine. My clothes, however, did not."

"But you're okay?"

"Right as houses," he answers, eliciting a quirked eyebrow from her. "Or is it safe as rain? I can never get those right." After a moment, an unabashed grin spreads across his face.

Despite the tragedy on the other side of the building, laughter bubbles up inside of her and spills out before she can stop it. She covers her mouth, but can't take her eyes off him.

"There's my sunshine," he whispers.

Her breath catches her chest and her laughter dies a quick death. His wistful smile disappears as well, as he wonders if he has overstepped. The words slipped out before he even had a chance to realize they were on the tip of his tongue.

He has little time to worry about the ramifications of his slip-of-the-tongue, because the next thing he knows her mouth is on his, her arms wrapping around tightly his neck. Unlike most of their previous kisses, this one is confident and sure, without the tentative hesitation he'd seen before. In the past, she'd let him lead, needed him to lead, but now she's taking his lesson to heart and demanding what she needs – which seems to be her tongue in his mouth.

"Mmmm," he moans, giving as good as he gets. Blindly, his hands find her hips and pull her closer together wraps his arms around her waist, under her cape and pulls her body closer to his, heating up the space between them.

"Thank you," she whispers against his mouth when she retreats for her breath.

"For what?" he asks.

"For being here. For me."

"No place I'd rather be," he confesses, swooping back in for a kiss.

"Hey guys! Could you knock it off? You're still on comms." Alex's voice filters through Kara's earpiece. Considering his proximity to Kara, Mon-El has no difficulty hearing Alex's stern command, flavored with a small amount of perturbation.

Like a flash of lightening, a mortified Kara is tearing her comms device from her ear like it's a hot ember and turning it off, practically crushing it in the process. "Oh my God!" she cries, dropping her head into her palm.

Disappointed by the end of the kiss, Mon-El thinks it's for the best, because there's still work for Supergirl to do here. And he knows that, as much as he'd like to, he can't allow this relationship ( _is_ it a relationship?) to move forward until he tells her the truth about what he discovered the night before.

"The floors affected by the fire have been cleared, including four people trapped in an elevator," he apprises her. "I loaded kids up on hospital beds and jumped them to ground."

"Seriously?" she asks, not too sure about his methodology.

"They enjoyed the ride," he shrugs, modestly. "I was careful and they were too excited about the evacuation to be worried about the fire. Kept begging me for another go."

"They'll never forget you now."

"Yeah, well," he begins, but looks away. He doesn't know where to take the conversation from there. It was exciting saving lives, but this was just a fire which is something he can handle, even if his clothing can't. But going up against another villain like Parasite, is not an idea he relishes. "I did what I could."

"Yes, you did," she praises. "And today it was exactly what I needed."

Her choice of words has his head snapping up, his gray eyes gazing into her blue. He's hopeful when sees a spark of pride there. Mon-El gaze drops down to her lips and more than anything he wants to kiss her again, but knows that wouldn't be the best idea. "Just glad I could help," he says. "You should let the Rescue team know it's safe to enter the building."

"I will," she nods. The tug her body feels towards his is visceral and overpowering, the way a positive charge is drawn to a negative. It's magnetic. She knows that if she steps any closer to him she'll be drawn inexorably into his gravity, and now isn't the time or the place for that.

"If you don't need me for anything else…I'll head back to the bar. There's still a lot of work to be done."

"Okay," she responds, wishing she had an excuse to keep him near her. "You should change into something…more. Try the laundry room, they're usually in the basement. Hospitals usually keep extra scrubs around for…clothing emergencies." It occurs to her suddenly that he might not be familiar with the term and opens her mouth to explain.

"I know that term!" he says, before she can explain. "From the show with all the doctors having sex. Thanks for the advice. You're sure they won't mind?"

"I'm sure they'll consider it the least they could do." He lingers before leaving, as though not quite ready to part from her yet. Kara interprets this as a good sign and decides to jump on the opportunity before he's gone. "Will I see you later?"

What she wants to ask is 'will we have sex later?', but she's not quite courageous enough for that. She doesn't want to appear over-eager like one of those girls so clingy the guy practically has to peel her off of him, all while rolling his eyes in disgust. Her insides hit the pause button while she waits for his answer.

Mon-El wracks his brain debating what to say to her. Without a doubt, he wants to see her later, but there's the small matter of the obstacle in his way, namely the serious discussion about her future sex life, or lack thereof. It's a discussion they need to have sooner rather than later, and for her sake, it should be down away from the prying eyes and ears of the DEO.

"Hey…do you like ice cream?" Mon-El asks.

"I _love_ ice cream."' she gushes. "Who doesn't? I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!"

She's effervescent, he thinks, like that first fizzy taste of Champagne when the fine bubbles dance on your tongue and up your nostrils just before the flavor hits. Her everyday joy is the anchor that keeps him together, keeps him from exploding into the cosmos like infinite particles of stardust. He doesn't know how it happened so quickly, but it would kill him to lose her.

"There's an ice cream shop on Becker, across from the park close to the DEO…"

"I know the place," she nods, her smile suddenly shy again.

Kara wipes her palm against the skirt of her suit and Mon-El notices for the first time that she's not wearing her usual darkly opaque tights. She's just bare skin between the hem of her skirt and the top of her boots. His body reacts to the realization in an entirely inappropriate manner.

"I should be done for the day around 5. Would you meet me there?"

"Yeah," replies, breathily and almost too quickly. Then she corrects herself with the more formal and certain, "Yes! I'd like that. It's a date."

"See you there…sunshine."

A knot in her chest releases then, unfurling like a flower in spring, as if she'd been holding on to that tightness since the first time he called her that. "Can't wait."

The breeze of his departure wafts through her hair and her body instantly feels the void of his presence. He had held her up when she had teetered on the edge of a full breakdown. Coaxed a smile when the darkness around them promised to swamp her.

He had told her everything was okay and, somehow, his presence had made that true.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes:**

I feel like I should point out that some stuff happened in this chapter that literally blind-sided me. Just came out of nowhere. That's how it works with me – and sometimes that's how I know it's _working_. It's the stuff that blind-sides that really drives the story forward.

 _ **BIG NOTE:**_ I _am_ borrowing canon from other Superman universes. When Supergirl provides direct canon I will always choose that (to the best of my memory) but when no canon is provided I WILL borrow from "Smallville" or "Man of Steel". Be warned..

More religiony type stuff in this chapter, But it's alien religion stuff,so if you get offended…you're weird.

Chapter 4 is NOT explicit in rating. My apologies.

 _Look what we started, baby_

 _You're not what I expected_

 _'Cause all I ever wanted was some fun_

 _Look what we started, baby_

 _Used to look for exits_

 _'Cause all I ever wanted was some fun_

 _I never meant to fall in love_

 _-Jason Derulo – "Cheyenne"_

A black light provided by the DEO reveals the trace remains of the Medusa virus's presence wherever it fluoresces. Despite the speed of his work, it is challenging to find every bit of remaining contaminant. It's everywhere, he knows, thanks to the virus being aerosolized into a weapon. It's on every chair, every booth, on the ceiling, beneath the tables, and every glass and bottle of liquor will be have to be decontaminated.

"Why don't we knock off for the rest of the day? We can pick up again tomorrow." M'gann, the White Martian who's chosen to live in human form, stands before Mon-El in a borrowed HazMat suit. Due to his immunity, he doesn't require extra protection so he's wearing a pair of blue scrubs borrowed from the hospital laundry, sneakers that are barely hanging on since walking through fire, and a pair of thick, black rubber gloves that extend nearly to his elbows.

"Walk me out?" she asks. Mon-El nods, tearing off his rubber gloves and dropping them on the bar. M'gann isn't one for tight spaces and needs frequent breaks from the confinement of the suit, from which she requires assistance in donning and removal.

In the alleyway behind the bar, they stand in front of the open back doors of her van filled with bleach and other cleaning materials. By the time they're finished, her bar is going to be the cleanest joint in all of National City. Mon-El sprays down her suit with a fine mist of decontaminant before reaching for plastic zipper that from just below the suit's helmet, diagonally across her body. She's tearing off the helmet before he's finished with the zipper.

M'gann takes a deep breath and tilts her head back, eyes clothes, absorbing the sun's rays like she's a Kryptonian/Daxamite. She really hates being inside this monstrosity. She hates even more that she has to. She slithers out of the rest of the suit and throws it in the back of the van. The bar had been her home away from home until it was heartlessly violated by CADMUS in an attempt to murder every alien inside. She feels as if it was taken from them—from her—and she's determined to take it back.

"Same time tomorrow?" Mon-El asks.

"You bet," she replies. "For as long as I can stand the suit."

Concerned for her apparent claustrophobic tendencies, he suggests, "You know I can just take care of it. There's no need for you to get suited up all the time."

"It's my place now," she shakes her head, "and I should be there. I need to see this through." After the attack, the bar's original owner couldn't put the place on the market fast enough, so M'gann snapped it up for a steal, seeing the opportunity to truly make a home here.

"I understand," he answers. Or at least, he's beginning to. Working for something, earning it, seems to make people more attached to it – responsible for it. It's a pattern he's beginning to see more and more among the humans.

"I appreciate the offer though, Mon-El, I really do." Then with a chuckle she asks, "You trying to get on someone's good side?"

"Just yours," he smiles, in a way that he hopes is not too charming, but rather inviting.

Her eyes widen, not expecting that answer. "Well, you're on the right track. What is it that you want?"

"Something a little more permanent. I could really use a job."

"Tired of living off a government stipend?"

"I guess you could say that."

"Well, I need bartenders," she says. "I'm having trouble filling my roster at the moment. Can't imagine why…" she mutters.

A ray of hope lights in Mon-El's eyes but it's quickly extinguished. "I don't…know how to do that."

"You'll learn," she shrugs. "It's not rocket science, and I'm sure that smile of yours will make up for the mistakes you make when you're starting out. Although I recommend not smiling at the Tregorians – showing teeth is an insult. Anyway…I'm expecting the place to be slow for the first few weeks. That should give you some time to pick up most of the basics. Four hundred a week to start, plus tips – which you'll split evenly with the wait staff on shift," she informs him, her tone all-business. "If you're still working out after six months, I'll up it to six hundred."

It sounds like a _million_ units of currency to him. The ray of hope appears again. "I really owe you, M'gann. You won't regret giving me this chance."

"I'm the one that owes you. If it hadn't been for you we might never have known who did this."

"No. that's-," he shakes his head. "I just wish I could have done more." He recalls the bar littered with bodies of dead customers. Peaceful aliens, like himself, who died at the hands of CADMUS. He might have been killed himself had he not chased after the perpetrator, narrowly missing the release of the aerosolized weapon; and had he not been a Daxamite, his Kryptonian-esque DNA softening the blow of the virus and giving Eliza Danvers a chance to find a way to combat it.

"Here," M'gann says, reaching into her back pocket and withdrawing a wad of cash. "For your help today."

Mon-El stares down at the folded wad and counts three hundred units of currency. "I think you might have given me too much," he says, confused by the sudden influx of wealth. The currency in his hand is more than his monthly stipend.

"Look, Mon-El, there are two people who can safely handle this task, and the other one is busy being Supergirl. That makes you a hot commodity. Besides, it looks like you might need some new clothes and shoes." She tilts her head, indicating his borrowed scrubs. 'There's a clothing resale shop down the street – that is if you don't mind wearing clothes other people have worn before. But they're cheap, and if you're going to keep jumping into fires, you'll want to get the most bang for your buck."

"Right," he says, having no idea what the phrase means. At least he's beginning to recognize an idiom when he hears one, so that's progress. Before he leaves, she gives him instructions on locating the shop and its name. It will be nice to have something other than scrubs to wear for his 'date' with Kara.

M'gann, having more knowledge of Earth, and National City in particular, is correct. For a whopping thirty-two units of currency he obtains two pairs of thick denim jeans, a few button up shirts (one with a hardly noticeable stain on the hem), a few t-shirts, a pair of brown work boots with steel toes, and a jacket with a hood. Changing into the jeans, he layers a blue and white plaid flannel shirt with a red t-shirt, and though he has no fresh socks, he laces up the boots anyway, tossing his burned sneakers into the nearby trash. His scrubs he throws into the bag before he leaves. He can't deny their comfort and wishes to keep them should he have occasion to use them again.

Mon-El makes a few more stops along the way to meet Kara, spending his money like a miser, but picking up a few necessities, like socks and a cheap watch. He also wishes to purchase one of these communication devices that everyone carries around with them, but after stepping into the store and checking the prices, finds it too expensive for his current state of finances.

Outside of the ice cream shop, Mon-El doesn't wait long before he spots Kara moving towards him, fast by human standards, but by no means using super speeds. She grins at him the moment her eyes alight on his, and his stomach plummets. The thought of losing that look in her eyes, terrifies him beyond the telling of it.

"I'm right here," Ral interrupts Mon-El's thoughts, his voice reassuring. "You can do this."

"If you say so."

"I do."

"Hey!" Mon-El greets, his grin plastered to his face. She's dressed as Kara Danvers, which makes sense, since Supergirl on an ice cream outing would likely bring too much attention. She wears a light green Oxford, with a dove gray pencil skirt and pointy-toed flats. She's wearing her glasses, with her voluminous hair knotted on her head and secured with what looks like…pencils? Will wonders never cease? "You're right on time," he checks the hour with the new watch on his wrist.

"Hey, you," she greets back with her usually cheery disposition. After a moment's hesitation, a shift of weight from one foot to another and then back again, she throws caution to the wind and leans forward to greet him with a kiss. It's chaste and quick, appropriate for a public sidewalk greeting, but still she aches for more. Pulling back, her hands on his shoulders, she notices his obvious change of clothes, as well as the bag he carries. "What have you got there?"

"M'gann gave me currency for the work I did today, and so I went shopping. She told me of a place that sells cheap clothes that have already been worn by others. Isn't that an interesting idea? What does 'bang for your buck' mean?"

"It means to get a lot for a small amount of money," she answers with a smile. "So you went to the Goodwill?"

"Yes, that was the name of it," he confirms. "I was able to get several articles of clothing and these boots for only thirty-two units."

"Dollars," she corrects. "We call units 'dollars' here in America…or 'bucks'—which is why we say 'bang for your buck'. Though other countries have different names and values for their currency."

"That makes more sense now," he says, his eyes lighting up with understanding. "Dollars," he repeats, committing its meaning to memory.

He's adorable when he's working hard to fit in. "Yes. It's written right there on the bills," she chuckles. Kara looks down, realizing that, at some point, her hand had slipped into his…or maybe it was the other way around.

"I also got this watch," he holds up his wrist. "It was twenty-seven dollars. Is that a good price? It has _not_ been used before by another person."

"Depends on the watch. Some watches cost thousands of dollars," she informs him with a smile.. "I don't think you need one of those, though."

Who would pay thousands of units—dollars—for a common device used for telling time?

"Watches are also a fashion statement," she answers, as though reading his mind.

"Ah." Mon-El leads her into the shop and they stand in line as they wait to be served. Ridiculous behavior for the sake of fashion or status is something he understands all too well.

Predictably, when it's their turn at the counter, Mon-El has difficulty deciding on a flavor as there are thirty-one completely different flavors from which to choose. The teenage girl behind the counter patiently offers him several samples on tiny little spoons, and it's the pistachio almond flavor that tickles his taste buds the most. Kara chooses mint chocolate chip on a wafer cone. They get two scoops each.

Kara attempts to stop him when he pulls out his wallet to pay, but he waves her off. "I want to," he says, enjoying the first time he's gotten to pay the way with her.

Also, he's about to tell her something unpleasant; it doesn't seem right that he should drop bad news on her _and_ make her pay for the ice cream.

"How do you feel about taking a walk?" he asks. "To the park, maybe?"

Kara nods and Mon-El's mind scrambles for a suitable conversation topic. The way she's licking her ice cream, wide swipes of her determined tongue around the rounded scoop, does nothing to help his predicament. Mon-El clamps down on the groan that's ready to force its way out.

She tells him about what happened after he left the ruined hospital. How she helped get the critically injured to the nearest emergency room, and how she stayed behind afterwards to talk to the many of the kids.

"Oh, they wanted to know _all_ about you!" she exclaims.

'They did?" Mon-El asks, surprise written across his features.

Kara nudges his shoulder with hers. "I told you they would never forget you."

"Well…what did you…say?" He's almost afraid to hear her answer.

"I told them that you were a _secret_ superhero, which they didn't believe because they said you had no costume, and _I_ said it was because you didn't even have a superhero _name_ , which is when they started making suggestions."

Amused by her description of the conversation, Mon-El inquires, "Really? Like what?"

"Well, there was the 'Leaping Man' – an obvious choice, if you ask me. Maybe a little _too_ on the nose. One older kid suggested 'Ascension', which I give points for knowing an SAT word. There was one young girl there, in the hospital for a gymnastics injury who suggested, 'Springboard'. Personally, I don't think any of them sound like you."

"What sounds like me then?" he wonders.

Kara thinks for a moment and responds, "Mon-El."

"But that's my actual name. And it won't exactly evoke confidence among people."

"It evokes confidence in _me_ ," she counters. "What I'm trying to say is …being a hero is a choice you have to make for you, not for anyone else. You showed up today and you saved lives, but I don't want you to think that's what I expect from you. I was on this planet for twelve years before I became Supergirl. I _chose_ to save my sister in that plane, exposing my abilities to the world, and as a consequence Supergirl was born. If Alex's flight had gone on to Geneva and landed safely, there's no telling what I'd be doing right now. It's likely that I'd just be plain old Kara Danvers, Cat Grant's assistant at CatCo."

"There's not a single thing that's plain about you, Kara," he compliments. Mon-El takes another bite from his Pistachio Almond, and rolls the cold treat around on his tongue, thinking about how his life might have been different if Kara had never become Supergirl. "If that had happened…we might never have met," he realizes. "The DEO would probably have locked me in a cell and thrown away the key. The only reason J'onn gave me a chance was because of you. You're the only one who's ever had any faith in me."

Faith he fears shattering, now more than ever. When he tells her the truth, if she believes for a moment that he's lying for his own purposes, she will never look at him the same way again, never hold his hand again, never kiss him again. And she will most certainly never take him into her bed again.

"On Krypton we had a saying: Rao offers freedom with one hand and unbreakable will with the other."

"What does it mean?"

"That Rao gives us a lot of breathing room to make our own mistakes and live out our own choices, but when He commands something, our own free will takes a backseat. He _will_ have His way," she tells him. "And by fighting it…the worst harm you bring is to yourself, because he will never stop trying to bring it about."

"And you think Rao made you Supergirl."

"Looking back, as I became an adult, there were signs that I didn't follow; opportunities I intentionally overlooked. I simply put on my lead-lined glasses and turned a blind eye. Until He did something I couldn't— _wouldn't_ —ignore. I try not to defy Rao when he makes himself known."

"You are very religious," he says, trying not to sound judgmental.

"Yes, Krypton is a monotheist culture while Daxam is a planet of polytheists," she parrots the teaching of her database construct.

"Or anti-theists," he counters. "Like myself."

"So you don't believe in anything?"

"Can you blame me really?" he shrugs, referring to the unfathomable tragedy that now defines his entire existence. "But even before…there was a god for everything. To believe in a god for everything is to ultimately believe in nothing. How can a person spread themselves so thin, like water spilling across a stone floor?"

Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction the conversation has taken, Mon-El is anxious to move onto another topic, even if means deferring to a topic he'd rather ignore altogether. Spotting a bench up ahead, he points her over to it, entreating her to sit, before taking a seat beside her. He tosses the remainder of his ice cream into the trash can beside the bench and wipes his hands on his jeans.

"That part was edible, you know," she chuckles.

"The receptacle?"

"It's called a cone, and it's made to be eaten. See?" Kara demonstrates by biting into the wafer cone with a satisfying crunch. She covers her mouth as she chews but continues to speak. "It's my favorite part, to be honest. Especially the last bite, when the cone is just a little bit soggy but still a little bit crunchy."

"Well, the ice cream was delicious, so I'll remember that for next time." He watches her whittle her cone down to nothing, before popping the last bit into her mouth to polish it off. Mon-El swallows heavily, hoping the right words to say what he needs to say to her will come. "Kara," he begins. "I invited you out here for more than just ice cream. I invited you out because there's something I need to tell you, and I think it's better if I don't do it while we're surrounded by cameras and microphones. It just wouldn't be fair to you…."

"Fair to me?" The world slows down around her and the vibrating in her body that's a constant presence around him now, comes to a full stop. Everything inside of her feels like it's circling a drain and she's slowly slipping away, scrabbling for purchase but finding none. "You regret last night, don't you? Was I _that_ awful? I didn't know what to do because it was all new, and you probably want someone who knows all those things already."

Mon-El can only watch, stupefied by her conclusions, as Kara builds up a head of steam. But then tears form in her bright blue eyes and her voice begins to hitch in the back of her throat in that way that makes him willing to do anything to turn her world right-side-up again. She stands from the bench and begins pacing in front of it before turning on him.

"But…you!" she accuses, wildly pointing her index finger. "What about all that stuff you said about doing what it takes to win my heart? You lied and I believed you! I'm such an idiot. It's the oldest story in the book, isn't it?"

"Kara, stop!" he shouts, grabbing at her arm. Her mouth snaps shut obediently, as she stares down at the hand on her skin. "Could you just…sit down for a minute?" Kara heeds his request, retaking her seat on the bench as far from him as possible. "I don't know about this book and its stories that you're talking about, but I didn't tell you anything that was a lie last night."

"But—" He holds up a finger, silencing her.

"Every word I said to you last night was true. I do want to be the man you deserve, the kind of man that deserves _you_. And I'm willing to do what it takes to earn your love…and…your trust. Which is why I have to tell you this."

"Tell me what?"

He reaches for her hand but before he can take it she snatches it away. A part of him shrivels up and dies on the inside. "Last night…" he swallows, "when we had sex, I discovered something that may be very hard for you to hear."

"It's about me?"

"First of all, you did nothing wrong last night," he begins, disabusing her of the notion that she is a lackluster partner. "You were amazing and I can honestly say that being with you was the most fulfilling sexual experience of my life."

"Oh," she replies, blush spreading across her face, followed by a smile. She worries a paper napkin between her fingers.

"Kara, you are beautiful in every way and your body is spectacular. But it is also extremely strong – every part of you. I know you are very good at controlling your strength in ways I haven't yet figured out myself. I mean…you could probably arm wrestle a drunk reveler and _not_ break his arm." Mon-El's attempt at humor misses the mark, and so he quickly moves on. "The problem, Kara, is that there are certain things that you _can't_ control, because you're not supposed to control them, and when they happen they are tremendously powerful."

"Oh," she says, this time a shadow passing over her eyes.

"Kara, you will never be able to have sexual relations with a human man," he says, at last, feeling a part of himself deflate a bit inside. "When you take your pleasure—"

"I understand," she cuts him off, her voice emotionless, like an automaton.

"I'm sorry…to have to be one to tell you that. I know it can't be easy to hear."

"How would you know?" she asks, a tinge of coldness in her voice. "I mean, how could possibly know how I feel?"

"Do you think I like this, Kara? Do you think I wanted this for you? How do you think it makes me feel knowing that if you choose me…it will be because you had no other options? Besides…do you really think I wouldn't have the same problems? That I wouldn't worry about breaking any human partner I chose?"

"Clark and Lois seem to be just fine," she points out.

"Your cousin's been here for thirty-seven years – since he was a baby. He's had decades to adjust. I've been here for a few months and I can barely hold an ale glass without shattering it."

"I'm thought you were getting better with that."

"I have to think about it every single time," he counters. He tilts his back, closes his eyes and sighs, defeated. "This conversation was not supposed to become about me. I just delivered some news that wouldn't be easy for anyone to hear. So…I think it's best if I…give you the time and the space you need to process it."

Mon-El stands up and looks down at the top of her bowed head. He wants so badly to comfort her, to place his hand on the crown of her head and stroke her hair, until her sadness goes away. "I think…maybe right now…I'm just a reminder of things you'll never have."

He picks up his bag and with one last look back at her, turns and walks away.

Kara sits there on the park bench until after the sun sets beyond the horizon. Until the sound of police chase on the I-25 catches her ear and she's off to nip that in the bud before innocent bystanders get hurt. She's happy for the distraction. But standing there, in the middle of the freeway in her flowing cape and Kryptonian glyph, she's reminded that this person she is – this hero with all of her unfathomable powers, may be all she is ever meant to be. And there's something heartbreaking about that.

She takes to the air where it's easy to be alone with her thoughts. Up there, in the stratosphere she can block out the sound of the city below and just…float.

In the weeks prior to the fall of Krypton, Kara's parents and Kal-El's parents had spent many hours huddled together speaking of their plans. Kara always knew that her newborn cousin, Kal-El, was special, having grown inside of Lara's belly instead of the Argosian birthing matrix like all the other children of Argo City, going back thousands of years. Like herself.

Beyond changing Kal-El's cloths in the first few days of his life, Kara recalls her Aunt Lara grasping her smaller hand, an excited smile on her face, and placing it over her ever expanding belly. She remembers vividly the way she giggled when the growing child inside of Lara pressed against Kara's hand, as though trying to greet her before his own birth.

 _"_ _Can you feel that, Kara?" she asked._

 _"_ _Yes, Aunt Lara. He moves so much!" Kara loved him so. Even from the very beginning._

 _A sad, resigned expression passes over her aunt's face. "He's a strong one," she said. 'Stronger than any Kryptonian born in ten generations, for growing inside of me. He'll make his own choices one day. Decide who he wants to be without some birthing matrix telling him."_

 _"_ _Maybe I'll get to make my own choices too when I'm grown up," Kara grinned, blissfully unaware that so many of her already limited choices would be taken from her in the coming weeks._

 _"_ _I hope so Kara. I hope so," Aunt Lara said. "Can you promise me something, dear one?"_

 _"_ _Anything, Aunt Lara!"_

 _"_ _If something should happen to me…or to your Uncle Jor…will you promise to take care of Kal?" Aunt Lara rubbed her belly indicating her unborn son._

 _"_ _Is that to be his name?" Kara asked. "Kal-El?"_

 _"_ _Yes," Aunt Lara nodded with a wan smile. "It means…Bringer of Hope."_

 _"_ _I like it."_

 _"_ _Will you make me this promise, precious Kara?" Aunt Lara asked, her voice taking on a near desperate edge. "It would soothe my soul to know he will always have you."_

 _"_ _Always, Aunt Lara," she promised the woman, reaching out to caress the squirming bundle beneath her skin. "I will always be by Kal-El's side."_

 _"_ _Then I know that wherever he is, he will be in the best of hands." The relief on Lara's face was palpable, but Kara couldn't think why._

 _Kal-El's tiny foot kicks hard against her hand and Kara, filled with awe, presses back, letting him know she's there and always will be. "Aunt Lara?" she inquired._

 _"_ _Yes, dear one?" Lara's hand caressed Kara's long golden hair._

 _"_ _Will a baby grow inside of me one day?" Kara asked, excited at the prospect of feeling it all from within._

 _"_ _Would you like that, Kara?"_

 _"_ _I would!" She replied with the innocence of a child without the means to determine the responsibilities that come with parenthood._

 _Lara placed her hand over Kara's on her stomach, and squeezed her fingers lovingly. "Then…if it is Rao's will, that day may yet come…if you're very lucky."_

 _"_ _I will pray to Rao to make me lucky."_

 _A sadness crossed Lara's face, and Kara wanted to inquire why her aunt was so melancholy about such a happy topic. "I will pray with you," she said. "For the sake of all Kryptonians…may Rao see fit to bless you."_

 _Kara didn't know what her aunt meant by invoking all Kryptonians, but she echoed back the expected answer anyway, "And may Rao see fit to bless you as well."_

She never forgot those moments with Lara which, as it turned out, were their last together before Kal was born. By the time he came into the world, a fat, hungry baby, blissfully unware of the destruction bearing down on his people, Kara knew something was frightfully wrong. Many times, she'd overhead her parents and Kal's parents as they huddled together, speaking of escape pods and a planet with a yellow sun where Kal would grow to be strong.

At first she wondered why Kal couldn't grow to be strong on Krypton, until more of the pieces were revealed to her and everything became terrifyingly clear. No one was going to be growing up on Krypton anymore, because soon there would be no Krypton. She remembers her father, Zor-El, a well-respected bioengineer, telling her that something was wrong with Krypton's core and that it couldn't be fixed. Not even by Uncle Jor-El, an astrophysicist, who was an expert in such matters, could find a solution.

Very soon Krypton would meet its doom, and everyone along with it. But they had a plan to evacuate as many people as possible using a variety of means.

It was a plan that never made it to fruition. The time they were hoping for and counting on, never materialized. Kara had hope upon landing on Earth (arriving late after having been thrown off course) that others had survived the cataclysm and found their way here. But her cousin Kal, who was now a full-grown man and very much beyond need of her help, explained that there _were_ no others. He too had been hopeful, and was glad, he'd said, if he only had her. But over the years, that didn't stop her from hoping.

If she had been thrown off course…didn't that mean others could have been too?

It wasn't until a year after her arrival on Earth, while lying in her twin bed next to Alex's, unable to sleep and staring at the ceiling, that Lara's words that day began to make sense.

 _For the sake of all Kryptonians…_

Kal-El was the Bringer of Hope, but so too was she – although of a different sort. One day, when she was ready to be a mother, she would carry a child that would merge the world of Earth and Krypton together. A child that would, in time, take humans to the next level of evolution. And in that child, Kara could instill knowledge of the _best_ of Krypton, so that the culture of her ancestors could live on after she was gone, at least in memory.

Even before she was grown—before there was a Supergirl—it was her biological _and_ moral imperative. Krypton must live on beyond her own lifetime and beyond Clark's. Not at the expense of another people, but with the help of it; together becoming better…stronger. Kara hovers high above the clouds, her secret spot, mulling over her memories and everything she thought her life was supposed to be, but turns out…wasn't.

Perhaps Krypton is meant to die with her and Clark, she considers. But if that was so, why should they have survived in the first place? Kara finds it unfeasible to believe that their joint survival was anything other than ordained. It can't have been an accident. Yet why bring her across a galaxy to this place and then make it impossible for her to perpetuate her bloodline, her culture, her history? Well…almost impossible. There was, after all, still _one_ possibility.

One possibility.

One path.

Her breath catches in her lungs, her heart taking a giant leap forward before every ounce of tension seeps out of her body, as all the threads begin to gel into a cohesive tapestry that's been right before her eyes all along. Why hadn't she seen it?

Every muscle in her body tenses as she prepares to put on some speed. It is about time she stop brooding over the derailment of plans she made as a child, and start accepting the path before her – a path laid out for a grown woman. Kara shoots forward, almost instantly breaking the sound barrier with a loud boom, a ballistic missile with a pedicure headed for the DEO. She just has one stop she needs to make first. Kara smiled.

She has to see a man about some red tubes.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter: 5/6

 _So come on now, strike the match, strike the match now_

 _We're a perfect match, perfect match somehow_

 _We were meant for one another, come a little closer._

 _Flame you came to me_

 _Fire meet gasoline_

 _I'm burning alive._

 _-Sia – "Fire Meet Gasoline"_

"You shouldn't have walked away so soon," Ral scolded. "Why do you always have to be so stubborn?"

"Blame it on 'Dad'," Mon-El snarks. His feet flap against the treadmill in a steady pace he finds soothing, but that won't burn up the device. He's been running and thinking without stopping for nearly three hours. Worrying about what _she's_ thinking.

"You could just go see her and find out," Ral suggests.

"I told her I'd give her time and space to figure things out. I'm pretty sure I meant more than three hours." Mon-El checks the digital read out on the treadmill's screen. He's already run something called a 'marathon' – a word that has a nice ring to it.

"You didn't even tell her you got a job," Ral sulks, in a way that seems both patrician and annoying at the same time.

"It doesn't matter," he replies, shaking his head. "Let's wait until I can go a week without getting fired before I tell her. After all this…I'm not sure I can stomach her disappointment if it doesn't work out. I think she's had enough of _that_ for a while, don't you agree?"

"She still might come around. You're a…what's that quaint phrase? Oh, yes. You're a catch."

"Yeah, that's me. I've been here for two months and I've had two jobs, neither of which lasted more than a few days. I can't seem to get a grip on the idioms in this language. I've already been kidnapped by CADMUS as a tool to use against her. I'm allergic to lead, which happens to be the main component in this planet's most prolific weapon. I live on a single person cot in a dorm in a government facility where I'm frequently treated like a lab rat. And I'm a Daxamite – a culture she was raised to hate and distrust from the day she was born."

"And yet she still cares for you," Ral points out to which Mon-El scoffs. "You can sense how strongly she's drawn to you," he continues, unbothered by Mon-El's attitude.

"I have _nothing_ to offer her."

"Why would you say that?"

Mon-El loses his footing at the unexpected sound of Kara's voice and face-plants on the treadmill, his body riding the belt until he's thrown onto floor, unhurt but discombobulated.

"Well, that's humiliating," Ral deadpans.

"Do you need…help?" she asks, even though she's very aware of his ability to take licking and keep on ticking.

"I'm good," he replies, popping back to his feet. His legs are a little on the wobbly side, on account of being on a moving surface for the last three hours. He paces back and forth a few feet, waiting for his land legs to return.

"Were you talking to yourself?"

"Yes!" he shouts. "I occasionally talk to myself when I need to work things out in my head!" He's not really certain if he's telling her the absolute truth, or inventing a lie to hide his conversations with Morgan-Ral. "Because I can't talk to Winn about you, or James, or even J'onn, and gods forbid I say anything to Alex! So, I'm sorry if I have to talk to myself because nobody in this place gives a damn about my problems!" he shouts, throwing his hands in the air. Mon-El's breath is heaving and his throat tightening to the point of uncomfortable. He swallows heavily, embarrassed by his outburst, and by the glimpse behind the veil he gave her.

Kara is dismayed by his admission and her heart breaks a little for the loneliness he laid bare to her, if only for a moment. She doesn't want that for him, but she breathes a sigh of relief because she knows that she can liberate him from it. That she's meant to.

"I'm sorry," he says, contrite for the negativity of his eruption. "I'm so very sorry."

"No," Kara says, shaking her head. Her eyes tear up at the downtrodden sight of him, appearing as though he has spent the last few hours apart from her digging his own grave. "I'm the one who should be sorry. You smile and you joke, and you…flirt. It's too easy to forget that you are experiencing an incredibly profound loneliness. But I think you're wrong. I think we care a great deal about your problems."

It's not a topic he wishes to discuss further and so Mon-El decides to redirect the conversation. "Did you need me for something?" he inquires. Are there civilians that need pulling out of flames? Please tell me there are civilians."

"No civilians," she replies, shaking her head. "I came here to apologize," she admits. "I said some things this afternoon that were unfair, and which you didn't deserve. I accused you of lying and intentionally playing me for a fool without any evidence of that being the case. And I was short with you when you told me a truth that must have been just as hard to confess as it was to hear."

"You had every right to—"

"I'm saying, I'm sorry," she cuts him off. " _And_ I'm bringing you a peace offering." From behind her cape she withdraws a clear package with red lettering on it.

The smile slowly returns to Mon-El's face, sweeping away a small portion of the melancholy in his eyes. "Red tubes," he gasps. Kara holds the package so he can read the letters. "Red Vines," he corrects, as she hands him the treat. Peace offering accepted, he tucks the treats away in the cup holder of the treadmill, next to his water bottle.

"I realize that, in the wrong light, one might assume you told me the truth because it placed you in a position of being my only option. Which would by default give you a clear advantage."

"It was the key point in my argument _not_ to tell you." When her expression conveys confusion, he clarifies, "The argument I had with myself."

"So…why did you decide to tell me?

"Because —my conscience—was right. If I want to be a man worthy of you, I need to start acting like it. And that meant telling you the truth, no matter how it made me look, or what damage it might do to what's growing between us."

"Oh, Mon-El," she sighs, touched by his words.

But Mon-El misinterprets her tone and moves closer to her. "Don't tell me you don't feel it too," he demands. "It's so powerful…it's in my skin." He studies his hands, instead of looking for signs of rejection on her face.

"Of course she feels it, brother," Ral interjects. "Even now she's generating an electricity so potent you could practically drain her."

"Of course I feel it," Kara agrees, and Mon-El can't help rolling his eyes with relief. "But it's so much more than that." She holds out her hand, palms up, hoping that he will take it.

"Is it?" he wonders. He slips his hand into hers almost without realizing it, as though whatever's between them is more than simple attraction – it's gravity.

"Remember when I told you about Rao and how His true will always finds a way to manifest?"

"I remember."

"Sometimes he does this by creating what we call The Blessed Path. We call it blessed because it leaves no room for doubt, no opportunity to err. To sanctify His will, all one must do is follow the steps He lays out for you, which is easy is because He removes all obstacles.

"I'm sorry, Kara, I'm not following."

Kara releases his hand and steps away from him. As a non-believer, he won't take what she says on faith, she's going to have to take him through this step-by-step. So she begins to tell him, her voice unwavering in her belief. "You were provided with a Kryptonian pod with a course to Earth programmed into it. Had you arrived on Earth according to the prescribed course you would have landed on this planet long before I did, a grown man, and still I would have arrived a child. Instead, your pod was blown off course by solar winds and thrown into the Well of Stars, where you drifted for a period of time, long enough for me to arrive on Earth and grow into adulthood. You could have landed anywhere on this planet, but you crashed in _my_ city. And then of course today's discovery just clarified everything for me."

"Clarified what?"

"He sent you to me," she says. Gazing at his face and finding it slightly gob smacked, Kara can't bring herself to regret her choice. And in many ways it _does_ feel like her choice. Looking at him now, she knows that, Rao or not, she would have chosen him, eventually. "He sent you _for_ me."

"What are you saying, Kara?"

"That…I'm yours. If you will be mine."

Silence hangs thick in the air, as Mon-El's entire world goes hazy around the edges, like it's lit with soft light. He stands there, staring at her, willing himself to wake up from this dream that he has clearly conjured in his increasingly muddled mind.

"Yes!" shouts Ral, breaking the spell her announcement held over him.

Mon-El steps forward and grabs her by the elbow, turning her around. Her face scrunches in confusion sprinkled with perhaps a tiny bit of hurt. "Come with me," he says, walking her towards the door.

"Where are we going? Did you hear what I said?" she asks, a tell-tale tremor in her voice.

"I heard," he replies, his eyes darting around at something she can't determine. Just as they reach the door, he slips an arm around her waist and switches their direction, whisking her at speed to the back corner of the room. Before she can regain her bearings, his mouth is on hers, lips nipping, and tongue demanding entrance, which she grants without hesitation.

After a moment, remembering where they are, Kara tears her lips from his. "Cameras!" she exclaims.

"We're in a blind spot," he informs her. "It's not a very large one, but we should remain unseen as long as we don't move more than a few inches to either side."

Kara's looks at him with squinted eyes, suspicion on her face. "Do I want to know how you know that?

"I spend a lot of time in this room, and I'm adept at judging the field of vision created by the angle and trajectory of each camera. It's a long story." Throughout his explanation, his hands have taken it upon themselves to wander her body freely. "Lips now," he demands.

They kiss hungrily, as though taking ownership of one another's mouths. He bites on her lower lip before painting it with his tongue and sucking on it as though it were a ripe, meaty pomegranate seed. Kara's arms snake around his shoulders, pulling his chest flush with hers, resulting in a moan of pleasure. It's been nearly twenty-four hours since she's held him this close, felt his heat, and her body drinks him in like she's answering the darkest of cravings. She wraps one leg around his.

She whines in dismay when his lips separate from hers. "Say it again," he demands.

For a moment, her kiss-addled brain spins about searching for the answer he's looking for, but one glimpse of the possessive gleam in his eyes and she remembers. "I'm yours," she obeys, her knees weakening at the prospect, her forehead falling against his.

"And?"

"You're mine?" she guesses.

"That's right," he answers. Mon-El proves her every word with the next kiss, rough and ravenous. It's complete ruination in a single kiss; for her and for him. The destruction of two lives, so that they can rebuild anew as one. "Again," he demands when he pulls away. His hands glide down from her hips, stealing beneath the skirt of her suit, to grasp as her bare thighs.

"I'm yours," she heaves, breathless, with barely a thought but pleasing him in her head. "And you're mine."

"Did anyone else notice that your legs were bare today?" he wonders. He caresses the creamy skin at the back of her thighs, tugging her against the hard ridge growing in his running shorts.

"I don't think so," she replies breathily.

"Why didn't you wear your tights today, Kara?"

"My legs—everything—was so sensitive after last night. They were uncomfortable."

"Your skin is sensitive?" He moves his right hand around to the front her body, brushing the back of his knuckles against her inner thigh. "Here?"

"Yes," she nods, breathily. He caresses her thighs, warm from the heat her body is producing in the general area, but he touches everywhere except the place she craves. Kara tuck hers head into his neck, placing kisses along his pulse point before working her way to his earlobe, which she grasps between her teeth.

Biting down hard on his earlobe, Mon-El responds with a gasp. "Hellion!"

"Stop teasing," she pouts.

"Is that what you want?" he baits, his open mouth hovering over hers, threatening to plunder but holding back.

"Yes, Mon-El. That's what I want." Her hands clasp his t-shirt, pawing at it like a kitten paws at a soft surface. The tip of her tongue steals out from between her lips, painting a glistening layer of moisture across their lush, red canvas.

She bats her eyelashes once, then twice, utterly unaware of the come-hither signals she gives him. "What else can I do then, but give my good girl what she wants?"

"Nothing," she shakes her head, falling easily into the role of coquette. Kara Danvers has never been a flirter; was never all that good at it. Even the best attempts usually ended up in awkwardness and new levels of anxiety. But he made it safe for her to say things, demand things, she never thought she'd have the confidence to do.

He moves his head beside hers, cheek to cheek, and whispers in her ear, "Tell me, Kara…are your panties wet?"

She bites down on her lips, the hot brush of his breath against her ear doing scandalous things to her body. If her panties hadn't been wet before, they certainly were now. She nods, her head bobbing next to his.

"Tell me," he reminds her. It's what he asked of her in the first place.

"Yes, Mon-El. My panties are wet." His hand continues to stroke her inner thigh never getting close enough to the place she needs him. She bucks her hips into his hand, hoping for some relief from the aching, throbbing desire that's only getting more intense by the second.

"Are they wet for me?" he asks. "Is that what I do for you?"

"Yes," she nods, frantically. "Yes."

Mon-El removes his hand from between her legs, leaving the space there colder for its absence, and places both palms on the wall beside her head. He pins her with a hungry stare behind heavy lids, which has a shiver of desire racing down her spine towards darker places. "Take off your panties," he instructs.

His voice is soft, sultry, but brooks no argument – not that she has the desire to resist. Before she knows it, she's reaching under her skirt and shimmying out of her panties. Although, they're not the tiny scrap of lace she wore the night before; these undergarments are made for the uniform. Red, to match the skirt, a thick cotton-lycra blend in the boy-short style. They slither down her thighs, but she has to work them around the top of her over-the-knee red leather boots before they'll hit the ground, allowing her to step out of them.

Her entire body breathes a sigh of relief when they're gone, like it's been waiting all day for this moment. Mon-El can feel the relief roll off of her in waves. "Doesn't that feel better?"

"Yes," she answers. Kara glances down at the tent in his running shorts, her lips licking of their own accord. She imagines peeling them down and watching as his erection spring free. Imagines sinking to her knees and taking him into her waiting mouth, as she did last night.

"Not yet," he says, reading the open expression on her face. "I think we'll save that for another time." Removing one hand from the wall, he lifts her skirt just enough to slide under. Kara's chest tightens when the tip of his finger teases the seam of her folds. "Let me take care of you," he says, sinking his finger in her soaking heat finding her clit with unerring precision.

"Ah!" she cries out as white-hot electricity streaks through her, his finger circling around her clit. Sourced from the bundles of nerves at the mercy of his fingertip, the heat spread outwards, sparking activity in her breasts and hips. She jerks forward harder against his hand, grabbing ahold of his arm that's planted on the wall for support.

He slides two fingers into her delicate seam and finds her slick and sopping with need for him. He could take her now without further ado and her clutch would accept him willingly, eagerly. The evidence of her desire swiftly and easily coats his fingers. Pressing forward, he dips his fingers into her core, watching the rapturous expression on her face as she tilts her head back, her jaw dropping open.

Panting heavily, Kara rides his long, elegant fingers, seeking to take him deeper, to consume him entire. It feels so good, she is unable to stop herself from seeking more, like a power source that needs constant replenishing.

"I think you're even wetter than last night, Kara," he points out, astonished and thrilled at the same time. "Are you still embarrassed?"

"No," she gasps, riding and riding, her hips undulating against the hand thrust under her skirt.

"Why not?"

"Because it means…my body…was made…for this," she answers, echoing his encouragement from the night before.

"Made for me," he corrects. Mon-El leans forward, licking a long stripe up the length of her neck with the tip of his tongue before sucking her earlobe between his lips. She turns her head to afford him better access.

"Made for you," she sighs, sounding for all the world as though she's about to swoon.

"Say it again."

"I'm yours."

His thumb strikes her clit, and it's like striking a match where the flame doesn't catch, it just sparks enough to cause her entire body to shudder. She wants to come so badly, but she knows – can tell already after only one night with him – that he's going to draw her out. He will crank her tension as high as he can get it before he strikes the match in earnest.

When he withdraws his fingers from her wet heat, Kara whines with disappointment, her face scrunching in a sensual pout he finds incredibly arousing. With nothing to reach for, her hips pull back until her backside is resting on the wall, her legs slightly angled away. He sticks his wet fingers into his mouth, sucking every last drop of her flavor from them.

Deciding to take action, Kara grabs his hand from his mouth and draws his still-wet thumb between her lips. She sucks gently, drawing it in and out, while her tongue circles lazily around the digit, her eyes locked onto his.

"You are…truly a descendent of the Vartine," he swears, his voice laced with awe. The taste of her on his fingers, however, doesn't begin to appease the ravenous craving he feels for her. He salivates at the thought of her sweet flavor, just spicy enough to always leave him wanting more.

His cock is demanding attention, screaming from the loose confines of his running shorts. Mon-El draws a deep steadying breath and mentally strangles the beast into submission, ordering it to wait its turn.

"I can't believe it's been a full day since I've tasted you," he says, swiping his tongue across his lower lip, leaving it glistening with the proof of his salivation. He tugs his hand from her mouth, cups the back of her head and dives in for a scorching, demanding his. When he pulls away, her body's lost some of its strength and she leans heavily against the concrete wall. "I think I'll do that now."

It happens so fast, she's certain he used his speed to bend down, hook his arms under her knees and hoist her onto his shoulders. Her legs dangle down his back as she seeks the stability of the wall to maintain balance. She lifts her skirt out of his way, pulling it up against her body, so that she can grab his hair with one hand.

There are no more words for a while after that – at least, nothing more than monosyllables. His long, patrician nose dips into her heat, nudging against her clit and brushing over it repeatedly, until finally— _finally_ —he tilts his head back far enough for his tongue to find her.

He grips tightly to the outside of her thighs as he takes long draughts from her, licking at her with flattened tongue, seeking every crevice that might increase her pleasure. His lips envelop the swollen bundle begging for his attention, and begins to suckle and lick at the hyper-sensitive bud. Her reaction is immediate and ferocious.

Kara's hand slams into the concrete wall at hip-level, her fingers crushing and gripping into as if it were made of goose down. Shards of concrete litter the floor at their feet while Mon-El smiles into the heat of her nest. Her other hand fists a handful of thick, dark hair at his scalp, holding him in place – as if he _would_ move before he was good and ready.

" _Yesyesyesyesyes_ ," she chants over and over. Her voice is a keening plea as she stares down at the top of his head, his mouth working diligently to take care of her.

Kara's heels press into his back as every muscle in her body coils, her lungs ceasing to draw breath, as she hangs there on the precipice for what seems like an eternity. Her back arches, her mound pressing insistently into his working lips and tongue. "Please," she begs, a sob rising in her chest.

Mon-El takes one long, painful draw from clit and finally she's bursting apart, like a firework in the night sky. She bites down on her lip to hold in the scream, still partially aware of their location. The walls of her passage, the muscles too strong for any but him to bear, flutter wildly— _uncontrollably_ —as he samples her pleasure with his tongue. She moans, the sound pushing out from deep within her, as if working its way up from her peaking core.

He holds her aloft as her body goes limp, kissing the soft skin around her folds as her senses make their slow but inevitable return. Her fingers stroke his scalp, no longer fisting desperately in his hair, signaling to him that she is ready for more. Mon-El allows her thighs to slide off his shoulders, easing her down until her feet are on the ground. When her knees wobble a bit, he grasp her hips to keep her steady.

"Maybe I should hover," she chuckles, her voice still breathy.

Mon-El takes her mouth with his, sharing the flavor of his meal. She plunders him in return, sucking on his tongue, before nipping at his upper and lower lips. When she retreats she wipes at the corners of her mouth with her index finger.

"How long do you think you can keep that up when I'm inside of you?" he asks.

"Not long," she agrees. "It does require a small amount of focus." Kara reaches for the waistband of his running shorts and tugs on the drawstring, untying it. "Which is going be when, by the way?"

"Oh, as soon as possible," he replies. "I was just waiting for you to get a handle on things."

She reaches her hand into his shorts and grasps his cock. It's stiff as a steel rod and requires no cajoling before getting down to business. That doesn't stop Kara from working his shorts past his hips until they fall to his ankles, and leaning down to place her lips over the round head, swiping her tongue over the tiny slit there.

Mon-El hisses sharply and makes his very best effort to not die on the spot. "Gods, Kara!" He'd love nothing better than to have her on her knees before him so that he can rut into her mouth, hitting the back of her throat over and over until he explodes on her tongue. But that is a fantasy for another time.

In a flash he's pulling her away from his cock and none-to-gently pinning her to the wall. "Wrap your legs around my waist," he instructs. "Hands on my shoulders."

When she does, she can sense him at her entrance, so she wriggles her lower body in hopes of getting him closer. He obliges her by placing his hands on her hips and tortuously guiding her down the length of his steel. The tension and nerves (and soreness) of last night now gone, she fits over him like a custom made glove. Mon-El throws back his head and lets out a long moan.

When he comes back to her, his eyes clouded over with lust, he says, "Do you know how many men must fantasize about doing what I'm doing right now? Fucking Supergirl?" Her legs lock tighter around him as if to draw him deeper inside; but by now, all he can think about is pulling out, so he can feel the divinely wrought torture of sinking back in.

It had been less than twenty-four hours, but in that time she had somehow, incomprehensibly, forgotten the exquisite stretch of his cock filling her. When he moves, it isn't the carefully calculated seductions of the night before. This time it's pure possession; marking her as his with every powerful stroke, every deep plunge of his hips. Her legs still caging his hips, Mon-El grabs her hands from his shoulder and pins them to the wall, interlocking his fingers with hers as he continues to pump in and out of her.

"Mon-El!" she cries, her head crashing back against the wall. More concrete chips rain down around them. A ragged moan from the center of her chest accompanies each of his forceful upward thrusts, as the sensation in her belly coils tighter and tighter, like a snake preparing to strike.

With each slow withdrawal of his shaft, her sheath clasps around him intuitively, struggling to keep him inside. It's a strange feeling of duality, her desire to hold onto him, coupled with the extraordinary messages his withdrawals send to the pleasure centers of her brain. She clamps harder upon him, this time with intent, and in response he growls deeply from his gut, his hands gripping her hips with bruising strength.

"Vartine," he accuses, his face grimacing with pleasure. As he pumps in and out of her his jaw drops open as though he has only so much control over his body in the moment, and has chosen to surrender what's expendable and unnecessary in favor of this task. In retaliation (or perhaps as a reward) for her shameless ways, his upward thrusts become faster and more forceful.

"Uhhnnnnn…yes!" Equal parts approval and encouragement, her exclamation is both groan and shout. " _Don'tstopdon'tstopdon'tstop_!" she repeats like a litany. Her hands slide up to sift through the thick, dark hair at the base of his scalp, as her breath comes in sharp, high-pitched gasps. She leans her forehead against his. Every muscle, every nerve, reaches for the approaching climax, she bites down on her lip as he takes her right to the cliff, but her body stubbornly refuses to fall over the edge.

Straining for completion, a flush spreads from beneath her suit upwards over her neck and face, joined by a fine sheen of glistening sweat at her hairline, making her look impossibly more beautiful, and so very…human. Typically, neither one of them sweat from external forces, not being affected by the heat of flames or applied temperature. They can, however, be affected by the rise of internal temperatures, from both the contracted and generated fevers, like the one their friction is creating right now

Sensing that she needs more to reach her peak, Mon-El stops his thrusts, eliciting a _harrumph_ from a suddenly pissed off Supergirl. He slides out of her anyway, which doesn't help the situation. Tapping her thighs, he encourages her unlock her ankles and then holds her waist as she sets her feet on the floor.

"I was so close," she whines petulantly.

"I know, sunshine, but we're going to try something different." Mon-El cups his hands at the back of her knees, thumbs curving around the inner leg, and lifts her up, spreading her legs until the outside of her thighs nearly brush against the cool concrete of the wall. He could never have held a woman like this on Daxam, his physical strength there being barely average. It had never bothered him very much though, since he had many other attributes to recommend him as a sexual partner.

Kara bites her bottom lip and moans when he slams back into her, deeper than ever and finally hitting the right spot. Her hands on his shoulders, she grips at his shirt until it tears. Every inch of her skin sparks with electrical build up, like the way a person's hair can rise just before a lightning strike.

"Is that better, baby?" he asks. This time, he adds a hip pivot each time he pounds into her.

"Uh-huh," she nods. He cants her pelvis forward a bit and just like that she's on another plane of existence. "Oh my God, right there! You're so deep," she cries, a sob she can't control rising in her throat. "So deep. Oh, God," she cries as the breaking point is upon her. "Oh, God, Mon-El! Don't stop. I'm co—" Kara's head snaps back, her neck bowing dramatically.

When she crests, it's like a grenade detonating inside of her while her indestructible skin keeps the blast contained. He watches as her face and chest burns bright red as she sobs in great gasps for air, her mouth open wide while her eyes are slammed shut. Ecstasy is written plainly across her face, though it appears excruciating. Her fingers crush bruises into his shoulders, though he can't be bothered to care. He drives sharply in and out, the drag of his cock within her violently fluttering passage drawing out her pleasure until she's mindless and replete.

He surrenders himself, wishing to take his pleasure while she is still in the midst of her throes. He speeds his rhythm, driving towards home. An aftershock hits Kara, and it steals his breath away – this crush of strength enveloping him, conquering him. He never stood a chance against her, not once she'd invited him to her bed. It would be folly to think he could have stayed away from her after their night together.

Being inside of her frenzied clutch is a heaven unlike any he's ever experienced, or is ever likely to again. With a handful of final groaning, gnashing thrusts he's spilling into her, releasing the weight of an entire world from his shoulders with a teeth-clenching growl. His body turns to stone in her arms with the last push, and then slowly melts into her waiting embrace. He lowers her feet back to the ground before tucking his face her neck while he catches his breath.

"I can't stop trembling," she whispers, and he can hear the sound of tears in her voice.

"Neither can I." Mon-El pulls back to look at her face, to kiss her lips, but mistaking his intent she snakes a shaky leg around him, locking him in place, still buried inside of her. Their lips meet, sipping of one another in slow, sweet draughts that don't press for more. Moving from her lips, he kisses her chin, slides over to her cheek, up to her temple and then to her forehead, eventually making a complete circuit as he worships her in gentler ways.

"Say it again?" he asks. He trembles in her arms so forcefully it's like he's vibrating.

Her eyes sting with emotion when they meet his. Instead of the gleam of possessiveness she expects to see in their depths, she sees the spark of something lost that has now been found once more. Hope. Hope that he can find something worth living for here; hope that he can make this place— _her_ —his home. Hope that she'll give him something to hang on to in the raging sea of uncertainty that defines him now.

She draws a shaky breath, made all more difficult by the lump in her throat. She places both hands on the sides of his face and looks him dead in his steel gray eyes. "I'm yours, Mon-El of Daxam. And you're mine. And don't you ever forget it."

Their foreheads meet in the middle, her hands stroking the sides of his neck, while he runs his hand from her mid-thigh to hip, maintaining their physical contact wherever possible, since neither one them were able to undress completely.

"I ruined your shirt," she observes softly, the apology clear in her voice.

"I'll get another. The place of good will had many to choose from."

A look of frustration on her face breaks the spell around them her head tilts back against the wall. "Alex is looking for me. So she'll probably come looking for you too."

"And since this is the last place I was seen on the monitors…."

"We'd better…."

Reaching up to his shoulders, he grabs the neck of his shirt with both hands, and with just small amount of applied pressure tears the shirt from his body, rending it in half down the middle. Forced to leave her warm sheath, his already softened cock makes a mess when he steps away. Kara sighs mournfully at the loss of their connection, already anticipating the next time.

Quickly, he pulls up his own shorts before balling up the remains of his t-shirt and kneeling before her on one knee. "Here," he says. "Let me."

Using the cotton cloth, he cleans her thighs, wet with the evidence of her own desire and smeared with his seed. Then when that's complete, Mon-El picks her underpants, turns them right-side-out and holds them out for her. She steps into them one leg at a time, before he guides the red boy-shorts up past her boots and over her thighs until he settles them in place. It's sweet, his attentiveness…his tenderness, and it makes her heart soar. Kara drops the skirt of her suit in place, smoothing it down with trembling hands.

Mon-El takes one of her hands in his, interlacing the fingers, and then lowers his mouth to hers in a tender kiss. "What I wouldn't give to be back in your bed, your skin against mine," he laments, after the ending the kiss.

Kara can't deny she craves the same thing – to wake up beside him after a night of lovemaking – but their current situation makes that problematic. He's bound by the rules the DEO has set forth for him and there's a process with which he must comply before he's given full autonomy. While he can check himself out of the DEO on his own recognizance as he likes, his curfew requires him to return to the base by midnight, like an alien Cinderella. A rule that has been even more stringently enforced since he was taken hostage by CADMUS.

"I could check you out of the DEO on an overnight pass, but if I do that then people will ask questions. And if I do it more than that, they will know. I don't know if you've noticed…but some pretty smart people work here."

"You don't want people to know about us?" he asks. Mon-El wasn't counting on her wanting to keep this new shift in their relationship a secret. He wants to tell the whole world.

"Alex knows," she answers. "She's the one that matters the most to me. And I'm definitely going to tell Eliza about us. But anything that's common knowledge in the DEO has the potential to get back to CADMUS. It scares me what they did to you," she confesses, her emotions riding so very close to the surface. "And that was _before_ there even was a…us."

"But that Luthor woman was arrested," Mon-El points out.

"The Luthors are a very powerful family, with practically limitless resources. Just because Lillian Luthor is in custody doesn't mean she can't control CADMUS from her cell. In fact, I would bet that she already had such a contingency plan in place, in the event of her arrest, which would allow her to do exactly that. We haven't heard the last of CADMUS, Mon-El. I need to keep you safe."

"And I need to keep _you_ safe," he counters. Resolutely, Mon-El cups her face in his hands, his expression turning soft but the look in his eyes hardening like glass. "Do you have any idea what it was like to be forced to watch you flare….to make yourself vulnerable…for me? Do you have any idea how terrified I was when they dragged you out of the room, knowing they could do anything they wanted to you and I was powerless to stop it? I won't ever be in that position again, Kara. I swore it then, and I'm swearing it to you now."

"Mon-El—" she begins, shaking her head.

"If you think there wasn't an ' _us'_ before CADMUS…you're dead wrong."

On some level, she knows it's true. That even before she acknowledged this attraction to him, which seems to grow stronger by the minute with no end in sight, they were certainly drawn to one another. Even beyond the animosity that clouded the first days of their acquaintance, there was a magnetism she would have vehemently denied, thus only proving its existence.

"When you were in a coma…your stasis...before you woke up…." Her voice trails off, a blush staining her cheeks anew.

"Yes?" he chuckles, charmed by her sudden timidity.

"I used to watch over you while you were sleeping. Every free moment I had I would sit by your bedside and stare at your face….willing you to wake up. I had so many questions. Who were you? What did you know? Were there more survivors? How did you escape Krypton, when I barely got away? Of course now we know that you came from Daxam," she babbles nervously.

"Watching me sleep…pondering my extreme handsomeness, even by Earth standards…."

"I was not," she jumps to her own defense.

"Aha! You're crinkling," he accuses her, pointing a finger to the furrow between her eyebrows. A slow, delicious smile spreads across his face, and Kara's heart stutters at the sight of it. "Admit it."

She purses her lips together in a sardonic pout, covering the fact that she's pure putty when he smiles, and retorts, "Well, even if I had been…a _little_ …that all changed when you put her hand around my throat and threw me across the room."

The smile melts from his face, which hadn't been her intent as she'd only been teasing. Regretting her words and their price, Kara places her hand on his cheek, brushing her thumb where the dimple appeared only moments before. "I can't apologize enough for hurting you," he says, leaning his cheek into her hand. "There are no excuses."

"Of course there are," she replies. "You were waking up after being in stasis for thirty-five years. It's disorienting and you had no idea where you were or who we were or if we wanted to hurt you. You were in shock."

"You give me a lot of credit, Kara."

"Later, you were trying hard to be friendly in the worst situation imaginable, and _I'm_ the one that made all the wrong assumptions about you."

He smiles again, finally and then chuckles. "Well I can't be one hundred percent sure…but I think it all worked out."

She kisses him, because she knows they will have to part ways at any moment, and because his red lips are irresistible, like an addiction. Mon-El participates wholeheartedly, passionately, gliding a hand around her waist to her lower back and pulling her closer.

Already he's beginning to stir with want again, a phenomenon he finds astonishing. There's no part of him that doesn't want her and he hopes that she feels the same about him. "I can't get enough of the way you taste," he confesses between slow kisses. "Or the way you take me into your body. The way you hold me inside. The way you sound when you beg for more. Or the look of exquisite pleasure on your face when you come apart in my arms."

She melts into him. Their hands meet, fingers intertwining as his larger thumb brushes over the curve of her smaller one. Only a few moments ago she experienced a powerful release, and already her body is preparing itself for another. Any satiety she felt after her orgasm, though absolute in the moment, has since fled to be replaced by rapidly mounting desire that she fears will have to go unanswered. But she can at least, echo his confesses with a few of her own.

"I know that…I will want you every moment I'm away from you and that I will count the minutes until we're together like this again." She marks each confession with a kiss, just as he did. "I can't get enough of the taste of you on my lips. Or the look in your eyes when you first take me. The way your entire body turns to stone in my arms when you come, or how you growl your satisfaction in my ear."

They breathe each other in, reluctant to go their separate ways.

"Wow," Kara chuckles. "Parting _is_ such sweet sorrow."

Mon-El quirks his head to the side. "I like that. It's an apt description to how I'm feeling right now."

"Well, William Shakespeare said it…or wrote it, anyway."

"Oh, is he one of the reporters you work with?"

"No, he's a man who wrote plays a long time ago. It's from a play called 'Romeo and Juliet', which has certain parallels to us…you might say." Kara's head pivots sharply toward the doorway. "She's coming down the hall. I'll have to tell you later. I have to go."

With one last kiss, she disappears in blast of wind, leaving his arms in despair of her absence.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter: 6/6

 _Don't get me wrong I'd never say never_

 _'Cause though love can change the weather_

 _No act of God can pull me away from you_

 _I'm just a realistic man, a bottle filled with shells and sand_

 _Afraid to love beyond what I can lose when it comes to you_

 _-Five for Fighting – "Chances"_

Kara catches Alex just before she rounds the corner near the gym and directs her down another corridor. Alex takes one look at her sister and extrapolates an accurate measure of the situation.

"Are you serious?!" she hisses. " _In_ the DEO?"

"How did you know?" Kara asks, biting on her kiss-swollen bottom lip, her shoulders deflating. Attempting to lie would be a disaster.

"Because I have _eyeballs_ in my head and they're not just for show! And because nothing good happens when people disappear in camera blind spots," she chastises.

"Oh, something very good happ—" Kara grins.

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Kara Danvers! Oh my God," Alex rubs her forehead with one hand. "You're still sweating—you can sweat?—and your neck is the color of your cape. How close did I come to catching you two?"

"Pretty close." At first Kara has the decency to look chastened but then after a beat, "For round two."

Alex hangs her head, suddenly interested in her boots, her face suddenly deadly serious. "I don't even know what could have happened if you'd been caught."

Kara's eyes narrow, a sliver of fear slicing through her chest. "They can't…they can't keep us apart, Alex. Can they? I mean…would they? _Why_ would they?"

"I don't know what the policies are about two aliens under the protection of DEO…fraternizing. So, for now, you two should keep this on the down-low." Alex grimaces uncomfortably. "If that's even remotely possible."

"Why would they try to keep us apart, Alex?"

Alex sighs, placing her hand on her hips. Seeing another agent approaching down the corridor, she takes Kara's arm and pulls aside toward to wall, allowing the man to pass and to provide them more privacy. She keeps her voice in a lower register, more difficult for the directional mikes to pick up.

"It's only rumors I've heard. Congress may have passed the Alien Amnesty Act, but it opened a lot of doors to ask other questions about extraterrestrials. Shouldn't we be provided with knowledge about their cultures? Outstanding animosities between species, in case we need to keep them separated? Should we require them to register their planet of origin as well as any extra abilities they may have? "

"Alien registration," Kara nods, disturbed. "I'm familiar with _that_ talk."

"That's not the worst of it," Alex shook her head. "There are some senators that are saying aliens should be forbidden from breeding. There are fears that the more powerful aliens will band together and create a community that could become overlords."

"Aliens like me and my cousin," she extrapolates. "But we would never do that. And if we had any children we would never teach our children that."

"I know," Alex reminds her. She reaches out and runs her hand along Kara's arm, soothing her hurt feelings. How much does Kara have to give in protection of this planet, until the power seekers will stop wanting to take things away from her? "But you know as well as I do, that sometimes there are other forces behind the scenes pulling the strings."

"Lillian and Lex Luthor," Kara nods.

"My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I'm sure it's not even something you need to worry about right now. I mean, you two are using protection, right?" It's not a question from Alex, so much as it is an assumption.

In a flash Kara is assaulted with the memory of being with Mon-El just minutes before leaving the gym to stall Alex. A vivid memory of how it felt when Mon-El spent himself inside of her – the forceful heat of him rushing into her womb. "Yeah," she lies, putting on her best fake smile and waving her hand in a gesture designed to put her sister at ease. "Of course we are. Did you come looking for me for a reason?"

"The Mayor wants to give you an award for what you did at the hospital today."

Kara cringes, acid rising to the back of her throat. "Oh, no," she says, "I don't need an award. Tell her I was just doing my job. No award."

"Kara," Alex sighs. "You helped save a lot of lives."

"Not enough," she shakes her head. "Now, if I'd been there to stop the crash from happening in the first place, that might have deserved an award."

"It was a horrible, devastating accident, Kara. And you are not God. You can't be everywhere at once and you can't see the future."

"Sure would be nice if I could though."

"I wouldn't be so sure. I know it hurts…those kids today…and you've always been the one with faith, Kara. But I believe that everything happens for reason. Sometimes we get the privilege of learning what those reasons are, but most of the time we don't. That's where the faith comes in." When the sadness eased a little from Kara's face, Alex continued, "If you feel that strongly about it, I'll tell the Mayor that you're not up for it. She sounded like she really wanted to thank you in person though."

"No awards," Kara stands firm. "If she wants to thank me in person we can meet in her office in the evening tomorrow. No cameras. No photo ops. How would that look to the parents and families of the children that died? This isn't a victory lap."

"Understood," Alex agrees, lips curving into a humorous smirk. "Anything else I can do to make my sister happy?"

"Can we find a way to get my boyfriend off of lockdown so we don't have to sneak around?"

Alex's eyes widen to a near impossible size. "Boyfriend? Is that how it is?"

Kara nods sharply. "That's how it is."

"I see. Well, the best thing he can do is come off the government stipend," she suggests. "And if he could avoid getting kidnapped by CADMUS that would be good too. I know you like him…but the boy's a magnet for trouble."

"He's a man, by the way," Kara says. Then she says, perhaps just to annoy her sister, "Definitely… _definitely_ …a man."

"Eww, okay," Alex retorts. "Maybe you should find a mirror and fix yourself up before someone takes a little too much notice, like some of the guys around here do. Trust me…you don't want that drama."

Kara pats at her hair, which is now frizzier and wilder than usual, and possibly still has bits of concrete clinging to it. "That's probably a good idea. I think I'll just go home since I'm not needed at the moment. Glass of wine…long hot bath…maybe catch up on some emails. Snapper sometimes likes to send out first-come-first-serve assignments via email to see who's paying attention."

"I'll let J'onn know you're off the clock."

"Thanks. I'll see you later, Alex."

A half hour later, Kara is not taking a long hot bath in her apartment, but sitting in the kitchen of her childhood home in Midvale trying to figure out how to broach a sensitive subject with her mother. Eliza Danvers, dressed in her pajamas, her long blond locks in a sloppy topknot on the top of her head, hands her adopted daughter a cup of coffee.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Eliza asks, opening the conversation. Something is bothering her youngest daughter, but Eliza knows that it's best to let Kara open up in her own time. She always does eventually, one just has to be patient.

"I can't just come see you?" With a raised eyebrow from her mother, Kara looks away, knowing that she's been caught out. "How's the work going on a cure for Mon-El's lead allergy?" she wonders. Taking some positive information back to Mon-El would be worth seeing the expression on his face.

"We're never going to find a cure, Kara," Eliza warns. "At least not with our current level of technology. But I'm close to finding an antidote."

"An antidote? Really?" Kara's face lights up, like Eliza hasn't seen in a long time, a blush rising to her cheeks and a new sparkle in her eyes. She's suspected for a while that Kara was approaching some new emotional changes in her life, and her daughter's first line of questioning only confirms her theory.

"It would have to be taken immediately after exposure, similar to the use of an EpiPen to stop anaphylactic shock. I'm not sure how we'll be able to administer it intravenously with his impervious skin…but that's tomorrow's problem. I have to complete the antidote first, and then test it. Also…a problem for another day."

"That's all incredible news," Kara gushes. "I can't wait to tell him."

Eliza puckers her lips and blows a waft of steam from her coffee, cooling the liquid down before taking a slow sip, making sure to slurp it just a little to heighten the silence that hangs in the air between them. She allows her taste buds to leisurely take stock of the flavors before lifting the mug for a second, slurping sip, cranking the tension in her daughter's shoulders another notch. The grandmother clock in the hall entryway ticks away the seconds with a near deafening 'click-clank' as if judging Kara's cowardice.

Eliza sighs. Any minute….

"I had sex with Mon-El," Kara blurts, the long silence from her mother too much to bear.

…now.

Eliza doesn't know whether to smile at Kara's predictability or to commence an in depth interrogation about the bomb she just dropped. Being the mother that she is, she opts for the latter. "First of all…are you okay?"

"I'm good," Kara rushes to reassure her. "I'm great! It was great. He was… _really_ great."

Sex had never been a verboten conversation in their household, once the girls had been old enough to discuss such things. Eliza wanted them to know that they could always come to her with questions or concerns. She didn't want to be one of those mothers who stuck their heads in the sand. Of course, things might have been different, more difficult to discuss, had Jeremiah been around, but Eliza would have mandated that the lines of communication remain open she is sure, even if they needed to bypass Jeremiah's ears entirely.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to hear that," Eliza sighs, relieved that her daughter's first sexual experience had not been traumatic. Eliza throws a wink Kara's way. "I told you he liked you. So…tell me how it happened." She lifts her mug to take another sip of coffee.

"I asked him to have sex with me and he said yes."

Never in her life had Eliza ever performed a spit take, but it appears that there truly is a first time for everything. "You did what?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she chuckles, grabbing a napkin to wipe up the spray of coffee. "You _asked_ him to have sex with you?"

"Well at first I just wanted to get the first time out of the way, and then after that…." Her voice trails off, hoping that Eliza will read her as she's always so good at doing.

"You hoped it would help open up your options. I know that you had hopes that someday—"

"I know that you warned it might not be impossible," Kara cuts her off. "Well…you were right."

"It's not often I wish I was wrong, honey."

"I know."

Eliza reaches across the table and takes Kara's hand in hers, which is accepted warmly.

"Did you know?" Kara asks, tilting her head and eyeing her mother with some suspicion. "Did you know that Mon-El would be able to have sex with me?"

Eliza nods slowly. "After everything I learned about his physiology when he was sick with the Medusa virus, it became clear that he has the necessary invulnerability, pain tolerance, and as an added bonus…elevated epinephrine and dopamine levels to override any possible pain response, as well as to enhance his pleasure."

"Why didn't you say something?" Kara asks, her voice rising in frustration.

Eliza raises an eyebrow that says more than mere words. "Be honest, Kara. Would you have had sex with Mon-El because _I_ told you to?"

After a moment of consideration, Kara slumps back in her chair and crosses her arms, pouting. "No."

"You had to come to it all on your own. You've always been like that." She smiles warmly, with motherly affection. "So…earlier you said, 'at first'."

"What?"

"You said, 'at first you just wanted to get the first time out of the way'," Eliza quoted. "Did something change?"

"I guess it…opened up some feelings I might have been in denial about. A little bit…maybe."

"A lot…definitely," Eliza counters, teasing her daughter. She places her elbow on the table and leans her chin into her cupped hand, listening attentively. "You should see yourself when you're around him. I can't remember how many crushes you had in high school, but you were never like that before. Heightened adrenal response, blushing, eyes dilating, hands trembling – your reaction to him at Thanksgiving was very noticeable. So you had sex…and?"

"I wanted to have more sex."

Eliza bursts into laughter.

"But then he confirmed your theories that I didn't want to listen to – that having sex with a human would likely kill said human."

"That was brave of him."

"I was angry, at first. Then sad. And then I remembered that the Book of Rao talks about the Blessed Path."

"What's that, honey?" Though a person of science, and not of faith, Eliza always indulged her daughter's beliefs, because it helped her stay connected to her home – to her culture.

"That when Rao chooses a Path for you, He will leave no other avenue open to distract you from His will."

"And you think Mon-El is part of Rao's will," Eliza extrapolates, as though mulling over Kara's theory.

Kara enumerates all the reasons that lead her to that conclusion, stating her argument, including reminding her about the scenario which forced her to reveal her powers to the world. Still, to this day, Eliza can feel that sliver of fear race down her spine when she thinks of almost losing Alex in a plane crash – like the rush of adrenaline that floods the system after a narrowly missed close call.

"Even you don't believe in _that_ many coincidences," Kara points out.

"The chances of coincidences occurring if the probability distribution is random _are_ finite," she indulges Kara, but doesn't wish to debate her or challenge her beliefs.

"Finite chances," Kara nods, as though hearing the answer she had been hoping to hear. "So…we're together now," she announces. But then her face crumbles in on itself, much as Eliza was accustomed to seeing in the early teen years. "I think. I mean…I'm pretty sure."

"You're pretty sure?" Eliza echoes.

"Well…I told him about the Blessed Path and what I thought it meant and then we said things about belonging with each other and then we had sex, which was amazing, except…." Kara took a deep breath, as if her long sentence had actually winded her.

"Except?"

Kara drops her head in her hands, either to hide from her mother or to avoid the look of judgement that is sure to come…or possibly both. No. Definitely both. "We forgot to use protection! I know! I'm a horrible person!" she cries, choosing to get a jump on judging herself rather than letting her mom do all the heavy lifting. "What were we thinking? Well, we _weren't_ thinking were we? We were just feeling. So caught up in the moment and the emotion, it was like our brains just…left the building. I can't really blame him though because the whole concept of condoms is completely foreign to him. I had to explain it to him the first time. One shouldn't expect him to take the blame for this quite yet. That wouldn't be fair. Nope," she shakes her head vehemently. "This is all on me." She slinks back into her face-in-hands position.

"Are you done?" Eliza asks. "Because you were kind of on a roll there."

"What do I do?" Kara whines, sounding for all the world like her twelve year old self who doesn't want to back to the new school that scares here.

"I'm afraid even you can't undo what's already been done. If you were Alex I would say the morning-after pill is an option, but with you I can't be sure what kind of dosage you would need, and by the time I calculated it, any embryo conceived would already have implanted in the uterine wall."

Hearing it out loud, the words 'conceived' and 'embryo', sends a strange thrill through her, causing her breasts to feel heavy; but there's fear there as well. There are more implications to motherhood than she ever could have imagined when she was a child dreaming of carrying a baby that might save the people of Krypton from total universal extinction. Such as how many people would want to get their hands on her child to do who-knows-what horrible things to it.

"Now it is possible that I can calculate the correct dosage for a standard hormone based birth control regimen, which you should be able to take by mouth. Alex should be able to provide a prescription for you. Though it may raise a few eyebrows at the pharmacy."

"Really?"

"Of course, we'd have to wait until we know if sure if there's a bun in your oven before you can go on The Pill. In the meantime, you need to be vigilant about condoms."

A plan, Kara sighs, her spirits lifting somewhat. She always feels better when her mother makes a plan. It's Eliza's way of saying everything's going to be okay.

"We will," she promises and then after a moment. "What are the odds, really? That I can get pregnant from just one time?" Kara asks.

"You don't want to know," Eliza replies. "Fertility can be a funny thing, Kara. Overly generous to some, cruelly fickle with others, and with you…there's no road map. But let's not worry about it until we know for sure. It's a waste of energy."

"Easy for you to say," mumbles Kara.

"I know it's hard, but try not to worry, honey. If it happens we'll deal with it together…as a family."

"What aren't you angrier about this?" Kara wonders. She came to Midvale expecting a lecture on the virtues and necessities of the proper use of contraception.

"Would it help the situation if I was? Besides, you've always loved children; gravitated towards them. With all the love you have, you couldn't help but make an excellent mother. And if you _were_ pregnant, wouldn't that be something special? Krypton Lives." Eliza smiles softly at Kara and a sudden stillness washes over her.

She's going to be okay. No matter what happens. She'll be okay, because her mother is in her corner.

"Thanks, Mom," Kara whispers, taking Eliza's hand in hers again. She rarely uses the moniker, always feeling like it's a betrayal to Alura, the mother who raised her for the _first_ twelve years of her life. But in this moment, Kara can't help but feel that Alura would be okay with it.

"Always," Eliza replied, her eyes tearing up a little.

Kara stays for another hour or so, raiding her mother's refrigerator and switching from coffee to a glass of Chianti. She tells her mother about her surreal trip to Earth-1 where she met some pretty amazing people (and one who drank too much and couldn't figure out how to work a shower) with amazing abilities, and how they stopped the world from being taken over by the Dominators.

They talk about Alex and how her relationship with Maggie was progressing. Slowly but surely. But Kara talks about how she can't believe how much happier Alex seems now.

Eliza confesses that she was offered a permanent position as a consultant with the DEO and that she's still considering it. Kara claps excitedly at the prospect and tells her she would feel more comfortable having her nearby, and handling any medical crisis that might arise in the alien population.

They talk a little more about Mon-El and when Kara thought her feelings for him might be changing. Eliza asks some pointed question about some of Mon-El's patterns of behavior, his sense of humor, and if she is yet aware of his sleeping habits.

Eliza walks her daughter out to the front porch, the two watching the stars above, so clear when not hidden by the city lights, before Kara prepares to leave. She wraps Kara in a warm hug, holding her tight, her hands running down the length of her hair, just as when she was a child.

"Kara…before you go, there's one more thing I want to say."

"What's that?" she wonders, suddenly worried by the serious expression on her mother's face.

"I'm no psychologist, but I raised a child who lost her whole world in one day and then crash landed on this planet with nothing. You need to be aware that it's highly likely Mon-El is in a state of deep denial about what happened on Daxam. He's not grieving, or acknowledging the loss and that will eventually become problematic. You need to keep a close eye on him."

"What should I be looking for?"

"Well, with you it was sleeplessness, outbursts of anger, and sullenness. But everyone's different; post-traumatic stress manifests in various ways. Mon-El's sense of humor is intact so he's masking. He may be experiencing frequent nightmares or selective memory loss about the events on Daxam.

Self-destructive behavior and a sense of self-loathing; and I hate to even mention this one, honey, but seeking pleasure activities like drinking to excess and—"

"—having sex," Kara finishes, seeing right away where her mother was leading.

Eliza nods sadly. "That's all I can tell you, Kara. Except that eventually his mind will catch up with reality and when it does…."

"When it does…what?"

Eliza takes a deep breath. "If my suspicions are correct…we should all be calculating minimum safe distance."

"What can I do?"

"He's going to need someone to catch him when he falls. He'll need you to be his soft place to land."

"How?"

"I can't be sure," Eliza answers with a shrug. "For you…I had to let you be mad for a while. But adults don't handle re-entry as well as children do. All we can hope is you'll know what to do when the time comes."

After one last hug and a thank you, Kara takes to the air. The flight back to National City is long enough to set her mind whirling. Two hours ago her biggest worry had been about whether or not she might be pregnant; which now seems like the least of her problems.

Is Mon-El having sex with her to keep his grief at bay? Is that all she is to him…a convenient distraction from the enormity of his loss? She realizes, of course, that he's not consciously using her to distract himself from his grief, but she also understands that if his denial goes deep enough, he may not even be aware of what he's doing.

On some level it eases her concerns for her own part, but because she cares about him it still stings that there may be this truth to him that's been simmering under the surface all along, and she missed it.

There's no desk to visit nor door to knock upon; there's just him, trying to find a guy dressed in black that's a moving target in a building full of guys dressed in black. Which is why it takes nearly half an hour, and asking fourteen different people his location, to track him the man down.

"Mon-El…what can I do for you?" J'onn asks before he can even get the man's attention. Mon-El isn't entirely sure, but there's a small chance Green Martians have eyes in the backs of their heads.

"I was hoping to have a word with you." Mon-El rubs his hands together nervously. Over the months he's been on this planet, Mon-El has reached a sort of détente, practically a friendship, with the alien accustomed to posing as human. J'onn isn't the type to be demonstrably affectionate, but he feels fairly confident that they've reached a harmony between them. As long as Mon-El stays within the lines.

"Well talk fast," J'onn advises.

"First of all," he begins. "I wanted to thank you for helping me get the job with M'gann. It's been a lifesaver."

"She called earlier today and said you did a good job," J'onn nods. "She also asked if I would vouch for you if she hired you on as a bartender."

"She did?' he asks, trying not to let the concern seep into his voice. He hasn't made the best impression on the people of Earth, and though his relationship with the leader of the DEO feels like it's on solid ground at the moment, it's not like he's J'onn's best friend.

"I've already submitted the paperwork," J'onn informs him, racing down the hallway to who-knows-where. "You'll be given a bench pass to allow you to come and go at will, for as long as you're gainfully employed. You will check in with _me_ , at the DEO, no less than twice a week at regularly scheduled times. If you break the law, your bench pass will be revoked. If you're arrested, your bench pass will be revoked. If you become involved in criminal conspiracies of any kind…"

"Revoked?" Mon-El guesses.

"Good to see you're getting the gist. You'll be expected to agree to a few other terms and conditions, but if you can get the main ones down you should be fine." J'onn turns to Mon-El and steps into his personal space, pointing a finger menacingly at his face, causing Mon-El to lean the top half of his body back in a comical manner. "M'gann is willing to train you in a trade, Mon-El. I suggest you follow her every instruction to the letter."

"That's the plan," Mon-El replies. He would do this. He _had_ to do this. For himself and for Kara, he needs to find his own place on this planet. Even if it means forgetting about the past and the life he once led. "Thanks, J'onn," he said gratefully. "You won't regret helping me."

"I'd better not," the man gruffly replies, though the softness in his eyes belies the rough quality of his voice.

"There's just one other thing," Mon-El says. "Could you not tell Kara about this yet?"

J'onn stops looking at the tablet he's just been handed and stares back at Mon-El, piercing him with his eyes. "And why is that?" When Mon-El explains, J'onn thinks about it for a moment before agreeing at last. "Only because she doesn't need any more disappointment."

"Thanks, J'onn," Mon-El says before J'onn shoos him away.

Something new is going to start tomorrow; a new direction where Kara looks at him as a man of worth; someone that can be depended on. The hour grows late and he's due to assist M'gann at the bar again in the morning, so not wanting to be late, he decides to get some shut-eye.

He debated taking a shower and then concluded that a shower in the morning after a good night's sleep would suffice just fine. Traversing the labyrinthine corridors of the DEO, Mon-El found his room, spare quarters for unexpected visitors like himself.

Sparse but for anything except the barest necessities, there is a cot with a few blankets, a footlocker for items he's collected over his time here, as well as a table and lamp for reading. There is nothing warm or inviting about the space he currently calls home but it does however, offer privacy, a commodity which cannot be overstated. So at least there's that much.

"So we're one step closer to getting out of this dismal dungeon," Ral rejoices. "Tell me, brother…who is this person you're becoming?"

Mon-El chuckles, which turns into a laugh. He toes his shoes off and puts them under the bed out of the way before laying down on the cot. "That is…an interesting question. Someone better, I hope."

"I only ask because I don't recognize this man before me," Ral leans against the wall, his hands behind his back, as though he had not a care in the world. "You never used to be so…focused."

"Maybe all I needed was a reason to be," Mon-El suggests.

"So a woman is to receive all of the credit?" Ral scoffs. "I don't think so, brother. This person you are now…is the person your father always knew you could be."

The pleasant sensation humming throughout Mon-El's body dissipates, leaving behind a sinking feeling. "I don't want to talk about him," Mon-El croaked.

"You're going to have to sometime."

"No, I think we can avoid that completely," Mon-El says, shaking his head in denial.

"You didn't think I was here for just me, did you?" Ral's countenance shifts from triumph to sadness. "I'm here for all of them."

"I have no interest in playing this game. You always do this." He wants to stick his fingers in his ears like a recalcitrant child, blocking Ral out of his mind, but he knew it would have no effect. He wants to run from the room, but Ral isn't a person that will simply go away, so he paces his quarters like a caged animal instead.

"What is it I always do?" Ral wonders.

"When are you going to learn?" Mon-El asks, struggling to maintain his slipping composure. "My father and I will _never_ make peace!"

Extemporaneous words slipping out often have unintended consequences, and the subsequent silence born of Mon-El's outburst hangs in the air like a foul odor, leaving him afraid to breathe. Ral laughs brokenly, a sound of profound desolation. "I think that's precisely my point," he says.

There's a sudden spasm in Mon-El's chest and a feeling of oppressive gloom, like being covered with too many blankets. "I don't—" Mon-El gasps for air, unable to draw more than a cursory, unrewarding breath. "I can't—" he tries again, before giving up and collapsing onto his cot, like a marionette whose strings have been cut.

Ral approaches Mon-El and drops to his haunches on the floor before him, "It's okay, brother," he says, placing a hand of comfort on Mon-El's knee. "You can and you will. I promise that you will. You _must_."

Not for the first time, Mon-El wishes a hole would swallow him alive and take him to some underworld of hellish punishment like the one that he deserves. There are whispers of such a place in the mythology of this world and a part of him was relieved to hear of it.

Mon-El fights against the swell of emotion building within him, determined to overcome it, willing himself to brutally beat it into a submission he can control. Ral sees his efforts and sighs in disappointment. "This would be so much easier if you would just—"

"No," he cuts him off. "I won't."

"But you will," Ral insists. "You _will_." After a moment of deliberation, Ral admits, "The storm comes for all of us eventually and the only thing that varies is the size of the fallout when it finally does."

"I don't have time for this," Mon-El decides, hauling himself from the cot. Reaching back to the neck of his shirt, he pulls the garment over his head and tosses it in a bin along with dirty clothes. Opening his footlocker he rummages for the clothes he'll need for tomorrow, his fury only deepening when there are no more shirts to be found.

"Damn it!" he curses, realizing that it's too late to do laundry, and all of his shirts are in the dirty bin. Except for the ones he purchased today.

Mon-El retrieves the plastic bag, heavy with clothes and other items, and searches for an appropriate shirt to wear to work the next day, pointedly ignoring Ral's looming presence as he does so. Tossing the new shirts, jeans, and a bag of clean white socks into the footlocker, Mon-El reaches the bottom of the bag and stops, his fingers wrapping around the final item, purchased at a drug store at the very end of the afternoon. Withdrawing it from the sack, an ember of panic in his belly flames to life at the sight of it.

An unopened box of condoms.

"I told you there's a storm coming, brother."

The End and To Be Continued


End file.
